Association Between Rural Residence And In-Hospital And 30-Day Mortality Among Veterans Hospitalized

In this study, the association between rural residency and in-hospital mortality was examined in patients hospitalized with COPD exacerbations. Between 2011 and 2017, researchers retrospectively examined COPD hospitalizations at 124 acute care Veterans Health Administration hospitals in the US. For this analysis, they examined a total of 64,914 COPD hospitalizations, 43,549 (67.1%) were for urban, 18,673 (28.8%) for rural, and 2,692 (4.1%) for isolated rural veterans. This study’s findings demonstrate that the potential gaps in post-discharge care of rural veterans may be responsible for the rural-urban disparities. Future study is needed to evaluate the exact mechanism that inter-hospital transfers affect mortality.

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