Patients receiving dialysis who were hospitalized multiple times had a higher risk of poor outcomes than those who were not hospitalized or were only hospitalized once, an AHRQ-funded study has found. The study, published in BMC Nephrology, found that nearly one in five patients in the first year of dialysis were admitted to a hospital and then were readmitted within 30 days of discharge. Such patients were at substantially higher risk of subsequent hospitalization and death and a lower likelihood of kidney transplantation than other dialysis patients, researchers found. The authors concluded that identifying strategies to prevent readmission among dialysis patients may improve outcomes.
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