Real world data on hospital readmissions of patients with heart failure

In an analysis of information on 448 patients with heart failure who were discharged from a hospital in Sweden, 20.3% of patients were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days, and 60.9% were readmitted within 1 year. The ESC Heart Failure analysis found that most of the patients who needed to be rehospitalized were readmitted for heart failure.

Patients who were readmitted were more likely to have kidney dysfunction, lung disease, and psychiatric illness than patients who were not readmitted.

"By targeting high-risk heart failure populations for hospital readmission and directing appropriate interventions towards these patients, many hospital readmissions should be preventable," the authors wrote.

February is American Heart Month.