Hospitals should be judicious in using resources to provide care for their patients. This includes discharging patients as soon as it is safe to do so in order to minimize a patient's length of stay, as well as working to ensure that patients get the best care during their initial hospital stay so that they don't have to be readmitted after leaving.
Leapfrog assesses hospital resource use (readmission and length of stay) for three common acute conditions: heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. A composite score is calculated for both readmissions and length of stay that takes all three conditions into account. Leapfrog’s readmissions composite utilizes 30-day risk standardized readmission rates that are collected and calculated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Patients can learn about their hospital's resource use performance on the Compare Hospitals page.