December 18, 2019
Discharges fall at most Central Mass. hospitals
Photo/Grant Welker
UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester
By Grant Welker
The number of patients discharged, a common measure of how much a hospital is utilized, continues to fall at some Central Massachusetts hospitals.
HealthAlliance Hospital, with campuses in Leominster and Clinton, discharged 9.4% fewer patients last year, a drop of nearly 600, according to a report Wednesday by the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis. MetroWest Medical Center discharged 3.8% fewer patients, continuing a longer-term drop of 40.6% since 2011.
UMass Memorial Medical Center saw an uptick in patients at its Worcester campuses last year but has had a 14.7% drop in discharges since 2011. UMass Memorial has experienced back-to-back years of financial losses, and in August sold a pharmacy management unit for $263 million to help fund its operations.
Discharges have fallen at seven of the 10 Central Massachusetts hospitals reviewed by the CHIA since 2011. Milford Regional Medical Center has been a notable exception, with a 15.8% increase in that time.
Discharges have also been down statewide in recent years. The drop is 5.1% since 2011, although 2018 saw a slight increase of 0.4% from the prior year.
Patient readmission rates, meanwhile, improved last year at UMass Memorial and Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, among others in the region.
Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Harrington Hospital in Southbridge and Athol Hospital were also among those doing a better job in ensuring that patients don't have to return to the hospital soon after a discharge, according to the CHIA.
Others have been moving in the wrong direction.
Readmission rates were up year-to-year in 2018 at HealthAlliance Hospital and Marlborough Hospital, which are both part of the UMass Memorial Health Care system, as well as MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Milford Regional Medical Center and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.
The best readmission rate in Central Massachusetts is at Heywood Hospital, where 13.6% patients need to return within 30 days of being discharged. That's a notable improvement from a rate of 16.3% in 2011. Athol Hospital has the highest at 20.8%, up from 14.5% in 2011.
Athol Hospital, which is part of Heywood, was one of three hospitals statewide to be noted in the report as having its discharge and readmissions numbers potentially affected by so-called swing bed discharges. In those cases, a hospital can use beds interchangeably for either acute-care or post-acute care, according to U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The Center for Health Information and Analysis said it will examine approaches to appropriately account for swing bed discharges in future reporting.
Statewide, readmissions rates average 15.4%, a slight improvement from a 15.9% rate in 2011.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to add context to Athol Hospital's discharge rate.
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