20% Drop In Preventable Hospital Stays Reported

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

County Health Rankings shows preventable hospital stays dropped significantly

The latest County Health Rankings, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute , found the rate of preventable hospital stays fell by almost 20 percent between 2003 and 2011. This drop came even as large gaps remain between the healthiest and unhealthiest counties in the country.

According to the report, a preventable hospital stay is defined as one in which the condition could have been treated as an outpatient. The study examined experiences of Medicare enrollees as a guidepost for the entire population, the report noted.

The results of the study show the best performing counties had 46 preventable hospital stays per 1,000 enrollees compared to a national average of 65 per 1,000. In addition, “Preventable hospital stays in the unhealthiest counties are 1.4 times more common than those in the healthiest counties.”

Among other findings, the study reported:

• the preventable hospital stay rate ranged from 14 to 281 per 1,000 Medicare enrollees nationwide
• Kentucky had the largest intra-state range, of 56 to 281 stays per 1,000 enrollees
• 10 percent of US counties have 112 preventable hospital stays per 1,000 enrollees
• the Eastern US has the highest rate of preventable hospital stays, particularly in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Southern Ohio

Looking at the country's health county by county, the report notes, “While Americans are generally living longer and healthier lives, large gaps exist between the least healthy and healthiest places. The least healthy counties have twice the premature death rates (years of life lost before age 75), twice as many children living in poverty, and twice as many teen births compared to the healthiest counties.”

The report further states the healthiest counties had better access to healthy food, parks, gyms, and exercise facilities, as well as greater access to primary care physicians, dentists, and mental health providers. In contrast, “The least healthy counties have more households that are overcrowded, homes that lack adequate facilities to cook, clean or bathe, and too many people paying more for housing than they can afford given their income,” the report said.

The report also found that the smoking rate among adults dropped from 21 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2012, that physical inactivity rates are decreasing and that the number of babies born to teens decreased by almost 25 percent since 2007 and by more than half since 1991 “due to greater access to and more effective use of contraception and delays in initiating sexual activity.”

Looking at health insurance, the report found an increase in the rate of uninsured adults during the past decade from 15 percent to 18 percent, but also found slight decreases in that rate in 2011 and 2012.