Correlation Between Attending Physicians’ Empathy and Readmission Rate in Internal Medicine |Biomedgrid

Introduction: Physician empathy has been correlated with several outcomes in outpatient settings, demonstrating better prognosis in patients followed by highly empathetic doctors. Aim: To correlate empathy of Internal Medicine ward physicians with readmission rates of patients they took care of. Methods: We extracted readmission data of all patients discharged from Internal Medicine wards at our hospital between January 1st, 2011, and May 31st, 2017. Patients discharged to other institutions (nursing homes, rehabilitation units, other hospitals) were excluded. The 30-day readmission rate was recorded for each doctor. We measured the empathy of physicians who discharged more than 100 patients during that period, using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) and the Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ). Correlation between empathy scores and readmission rate was weighted for the number of patients followed by each physician and adjusted for sex, age and relative cost weight of patients, as well as the doctor's age. The same correlation was calculated in the subgroup of index patients discharged with Diagnosis Related Group 127 (DRG 127, Heart Failure and Shock).