Readmission Rates After Major Surgery High for Older Adults

TUESDAY, March 19, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Older adults face high rates of readmission within 180 days of major surgery, according to a study published online Feb. 28 in JAMA Network Open.

Yi Wang, Ph.D., from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues estimate the number of hospital readmissions within 30 and 180 days after major surgery among community-living U.S. residents aged 65 years and older. The analysis included 1,477 participants in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (1,780 major surgeries).

The researchers found that the weighted rates of hospital readmission were 11.6 percent for 30 days and 27.6 percent for 180 days. Within 180 days, the highest readmission rates were seen among participants aged 90 years and older (36.8 percent), those undergoing vascular surgery (45.8 percent), and persons with frailty (36.9 percent) or probable dementia (39.0 percent). With death as a competing risk in age- and sex-adjusted models, the hazard ratios for hospital readmission within 180 days were 2.29 for frailty and 1.58 for probable dementia.

“These readmission rates are high,” co-senior author Robert D. Becher, M.D., also from the Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement. “This study adds to our understanding of what it means to recover from major surgery as an older person.”

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