Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-26-2023

Comments

This article is the author's final published version in Journal of Clinical Medicine, Volume 12, Issue 21, November 2023, Article number 6784.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm12216784.

Copyright © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract

Surgical patients can be discharged to a variety of facilities which vary widely in intensity of care. Postoperative readmissions have been found to be more strongly associated with post-discharge events than pre-discharge complications, indicating the importance of discharge destination. We sought to evaluate the association between discharge destination and 30-day outcomes. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database. Patients were dichotomized based on discharge destination: home versus non-home. The main outcome of interest was 30-day unplanned readmission. The secondary outcomes included post-discharge pulmonary, infectious, thromboembolic, and bleeding complications, as well as death. In this cohort study of over 1.5 million patients undergoing common surgical procedures across eight surgical specialties, we found non-home discharge to be associated with adverse 30-day post-operative outcomes, namely, unplanned readmissions, post-discharge pulmonary, infectious, thromboembolic, and bleeding complications, as well as death. Non-home discharge is associated with worse 30-day outcomes among patients undergoing common surgical procedures. Patients and caregivers should be counseled regarding discharge destination, as non-home discharge is associated with adverse post-operative outcomes.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Additional Files
jcm-2633277-supplementary.pdf (82 kB)

Language

English

Download

Share

COinS