Length-of-Stay and Readmission Rates in Missouri State Hospitals

The authors studied length-of-stay and readmission rates in Missouri's five state mental hospitals, attempting to control for diagnosis and patient-to-patient differences in chronicity. Each hospital's ratings were ranked by diagnostic category, and the data show that hospitals with short lengths of stay tended to have a high readmission rate, and vice versa. The authors conclude that their studies and others discussed do not prove that the relationship between length-of-stay and readmission rates is necessarily a causal one, and that the question of whether patients often are released prematurely cannot yet be answered.