Despite the fact that primary care medical homes have received considerable attention, little is known about the degree to which they influence early post-discharge utilization. In this article, Dr. Ryan Coller et al. examined whether patients with medical homes were less likely to have early post-discharge hospital or emergency department encounters. In a prospective cohort study of patients who had an acute hospitalization at a children’s hospital, the authors found that more than 65% of patients enrolled in the study did not have a medical home and that patients who had a “usual source of sick and well care” had fewer readmissions than those without. Readmissions were higher among patients who had parents with less confidence in avoiding a readmission, subspecialist primary care providers, longer length of index hospital stay, and more hospitalizations in the last year.
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