The Times Leader writes: The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) has revised numbers released in an April report on the rate of potentially preventable hospitalizations. The revisions did not change the overall decline in preventable admissions from 2008 to 2017, but it did increase the rate — admissions per 10,000 residents – for all regional counties. PHC4 first released the research brief “Potentially Preventable hospitalizations in Pennsylvania” April 26. The brief looked at hospital admissions for conditions that “might have been avoided with effective primary or preventive care,” including pneumonia, high blood pressure, urinary tract infection and several conditions resulting from diabetes. The primary gauge calculated to compare data from each of the state’s 67 counties was the rate per 10,000 residents. That calculation, in turn, relied on population data files from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On May 7, AHRQ issued a letter to PHC4 explaining the error, prompting the state agency to issue a revised brief this week.
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