Abstract 12284: Hospital Patient Satisfaction Scores and 30-day Readmission and Mortality Rates of Heart Failure Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Heart failure (HF) is associated with significant mortality and hospital readmissions. High quality health care is associated with improved outcomes in HF patients. A widely used metric to assess the quality of health care provided by hospitals is patient satisfaction. However, the relationship between a hospital’s patient satisfaction scores and that hospital’s mortality rate and readmissions for HF patients is unclear. Methods: We used most recent publicly available data from the Hospital Compare website to examine the relationship between patient satisfaction and 30-day unplanned readmissions and mortality for HF patients. Readmission and mortality rates are reported after adjusting for clinical risk factors. We used multivariable linear regression to explore the relationship between patient satisfaction and HF readmissions and mortality adjusting for hospital and local characteristics (hospital ownership, provision of emergency services, teaching hospital status, survey response rate, percentage insured and poverty). Results: Of the 3595 hospitals, 965(27%) were teaching hospitals. Mean (SD) survey response rate was 31.6%(7.3), satisfaction 69.8%(8.7), readmission rate 22.7(1.6) and mortality rate 12.0(1.5). In unadjusted regression, lower 30-day readmission rate but higher mortality rate were associated with high patient satisfaction (-1.4%/unit increase in readmission rate, p<0.001 and 0.2%/unit increase in mortality rate, p=0.03). After adjusting for potential confounders, the readmission rate remained a strong negative predictor of patient satisfaction (-0.75%, P<0.001), however, there was no significant association with mortality (-0.09%, P=0.26). Conclusions: We found that 30-day readmission rate, but not mortality rate, in HF patients is a strong negative predictor of patient satisfaction with hospitals. Strategies aimed at reducing HF readmissions may increase patient satisfaction with hospitals.