Readmission and Death After Initial Hospital Discharge Among Patients With COVID-19 in a Large Multihospital System

Readmission and Death After Initial Hospital Discharge Among Patients With COVID-19 This study describes reasons for readmission, use of ICU interventions during readmission, and proportions of death after initial hospital discharge of COVID-19 patients from US Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals March-June 2020. JAMA_current

Although more patients are surviving severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), there are limited data on outcomes after initial hospitalization. We therefore measured the rate of readmission, reasons for readmission, and rate of death after hospital discharge among patients with COVID-19 in the nationwide Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system....

In this national cohort of VA patients, 27% of survivors of COVID-19 hospitalization were readmitted or died by 60 days after discharge, and this rate was lower than matched survivors of pneumonia or heart failure. However, rates of readmission or death were higher than pneumonia or heart failure during the first 10 days after discharge following COVID-19 hospitalization, suggesting a period of heightened risk of clinical deterioration. Study limitations include the inability to measure readmissions to non-VA hospitals and an older, male-predominant study population, which may be at higher risk of severe manifestations of COVID-19. Public health surveillance or clinical trials focused exclusively on inpatient mortality may substantially underestimate burdens of COVID-19. ...