Thirty-day Readmission Rates and Associated Factors: A Multilevel Analysis of Practice Variations in French Public Psychiatry.

DISCUSSION: The extent of the variations and the factors associated with it question the adequacy of care and suggest that some of them may be unwarranted. Our findings should however be interpreted in consideration of several limits inherent to data quality and availability as we relied on information from administrative databases. While we considered a wide range of factors potentially associated with variations in 30-day readmissions, our model indeed only explained a limited part of the variations resulting from differences between sectors. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES: Our findings underscored that practice variations in psychiatry are a reality that merits the full attention of decision makers as they can impact the quality, equity and efficiency of care. A specific data system should be established to monitor practice variations in routine to promote transparency and accountability. IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Few associations were found between variations in 30-day inpatient readmissions and the supply of care. The routine collection of detailed organizational characteristics of health care providers at a national level should be supported to facilitate additional research work, both in France and in other contexts. PMID: 29643265 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Ment Health Policy Econ Source Type: research