Temporal trend of rehospitalization after establishing a heart failure diagnosis
F AlanaziAbstract
Introduction
Heart failure (HF) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, influenced by aging populations, increased cardiometabolic risk, and advancements in therapy. Temporal trend analyses are vital for tracking incidence, hospitalization, and survival, assessing the impact of modern care, and detecting disparities across subgroups to guide future clinical and public health strategies. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the rehospitalization rate for heart failure patients following the establishment of their diagnosis between January 2016 and June 2025.
Methodology
This is a cohort study using data from all adult hospitalizations (≥18 years) of a central region hospital database from January 2016 to June 2025, with a primary diagnosis of HF. The electronic medical records system (BESTCare) was used for data extraction. Unique, 30-day readmissions, and overall hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of HF and post-discharge readmissions were used as the main study outcomes. Furthermore, a stratified analysis was conducted by age groups and gender. The Cochran-Armitage Tend test was used to determine the significance of trends across years, and the chi-square test for groups was used to compare differences between age groups and genders.
Results
The overall readmission rate decreased significantly from 2016 to 2025 by 3.88% (p-value = 0.015), despite two peak events in 2022 and 2017 (26.57% and 16.13%, respectively). The 30-day readmission rate stayed steady at around 9% (Figure 1). The need for frequent hospitalizations among HF patients, exceeding twice a year, showed a decline from 9.7% in 2016 to 5.6% in 2025 (p-value = 0.010). Age- and gender-stratified analysis demonstrated consistently higher readmission rates among patients aged 50 years or older, as well as females had higher annual readmission rates than males, with no significant differences (Figure 2).
Conclusion
Our study demonstrated a significant reduction in overall HF readmission and frequent hospitalization with a consistent 30-day readmission rate between 2016 and 2025. Further studies are needed to enhance the generalizability to our population.Figure 1For image description, please refer to the figure legend and surrounding text.Figure 2For image description, please refer to the figure legend and surrounding text.