Reducing Emergency Department Recidivism Risk

With the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program’s focus on reducing 30-day inpatient hospital readmissions, many evidence-based interventions to improve the transition from inpatient to outpatient care have been developed. Compared with inpatient readmissions, less research has focused on emergency department (ED) recidivism, a quality metric increasingly used to measure hospital performance. Successful interventions to reduce 30-day inpatient readmissions may prove to be effective in the ED setting. The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of post-visit automated calls in reducing ED recidivism.