Please note that this measure is removed from the 2017 Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
Hospitals have a duty to provide high-quality inpatient care, discharge planning and education, and care coordination to ensure that patients make a smooth transition from hospital to home. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has identified avoidable readmissions as one of the leading problems facing the U.S. health care system.
Leapfrog asks hospitals to report their 30-day readmission rates for Medicare patients for six common acute conditions and procedures: heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery bypass graft, and total hip/total knee replacement.
These readmission rates are calculated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The CMS website has more information on how they collect and calculate these measures. This measure is publicly reported as Readmissions for Common Acute Conditions on Leapfrog's Hospital Ratings Results page.