The effect of advancing technology and knowledge on healthcare is phenomenal. In the last few decades, computers and other tools have revolutionized almost all hospitals, and they have made the medical system significantly and obviously stronger than it used to be. Although this advanced ability to care for the sick is a great improvement, it is not to say that there is no more opportunity for improvement in the hospital system. Preventable readmissions are one of the areas of our health services that deserves more attention and focus, because modern improvement is needed. A hospital readmission occurs when patients are readmitted to the hospital following an attempted treatment and a discharge. Because these readmissions sometimes occur after incorrect judgment or insufficient treatment, a high number of readmissions is a key indication of poor health service provision. Therefore, it is probably in the interest of most modern hospitals to concentrate on their readmissions and consequently improving their service.

The causes of readmissions are varied and diverse. Some can be very simply the case of diseases that are difficult to predict. Other diseases or conditions, including certain viral infections, can return spontaneously, requiring periodic hospital readmissions. Sometimes, medical procedures are complicated and unpredictable, leading to inaccurate judgments about recovery and healing. A more serious problem that attention should quickly be brought to should it occur is when a patient may contract a wound or infection, which soon resurfaces, that is not necessarily involved with the original problem. Among all of these possible causes, a distinction can be drawn between those that are preventable and those that are not. Preventable readmissions are the result of badly administered treatments and care or lapses in oversight that ought not to have ever been allowed to occur. The alternative, or readmissions that are not necessarily the fault of the hospital, are not preventable. This latter type will always exist and are not of considerable significance; instead of wasting resources on these, we should quickly identify the preventable type of readmissions and focus almost entirely on those.

No patient wants to be required to undergo a hospital readmission. This is stressful and unpleasant for the patient, who will certainly not be pleased about the prospect of spending any more time at a hospital that he thought he was finished with. Any hospital readmission will also put additional stress on the hospital, which will have to make accommodations for the extra and unexpected patient. The additional money that the hospital now has to pay for readmitted patients, and the associated reduced patient satisfaction, will not do well for the hospital’s ability to make money in the future while providing a valuable service. Therefore, hospitals are increasingly taking efforts to reduce preventable readmissions to as small a proportion as possible. Such action is quite often critical to the continued success of the hospital.