Study finds shorter maternity stays OK
No increases in readmission rates found
Managed care organizations received so much public backlash from shortened maternity stays that the government stepped in to set mandatory benefits for vaginal and C-section deliveries. Yet a recent outcome study by Milliman & Robertson in Seattle indicates there is no significant correlation between one-day hospital stays for normal vaginal deliveries and higher readmission rates for the mother or the infant. The study also found no significant correlation between a 48-hour C-section hospital stay and higher readmission rates.
Researchers used data from HCIA, a health information company in Baltimore. HCIA maintains the Projected Inpatient Data Base, which includes an composite of more than 10 million general, short-term, non-federal hospital discharges derived from public and proprietary state databases as well as individual and group hospital databases.
The study findings include:
o The 1993 national maternal readmission rate for mothers who spent 24 hours in the hospital for vaginal delivery was 0.33%. 1993 national average readmission rate for mothers who stayed in the hospital longer than 24 hours following vaginal delivery was 0.38%.
o The 1993 newborn readmission rate for normal vaginal deliveries was 1.96 nationally after a 24-hour stay, compared with 2.08% for a longer hospital stay.
o The 1993 readmission rate for mothers who spent fewer than three days in the hospital following C-sections was 0.46%. The 1993 national readmission rate for mothers who spent four days in the hospital following C-section was 1.5%.
o The newborn readmission rate was 1.72% for infants who stayed in the hospital two days following C-section, compared with 1.48% for a three- to seven-day hospital stay.
In addition, the study found wide regional variances in lengths of stay for the two types of deliveries in 1993. In the Western United States, some 72% of normal vaginal deliveries had a one-day hospital stay, compared with only 9% of patients in Northeastern states. The readmission rate for one-day normal delivery patients in the Northeast was 1.48% more than six times the 0.24% rate found in Western states.
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