One-third of hospitalized patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were readmitted within 30 days at a major Los Angeles-based institution, according to a recent study, and researchers identified characteristics of this at-risk population at time of discharge with high specificity, in hopes of reducing this costly outcome. Researchers performed a retrospective case-control study examining all inpatient electronic health records of patients with SLE at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center over a 2.5-year period (2012–2014). Patients were included if they had a diagnosis of SLE and were readmitted within 30 days of their initial hospitalization. Patients with SLE not readmitted during this time period were used as a control group. They found:

• In total, 570 hospitalizations representing 455 unique patients met the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
• Of these, 154 patients (34%) underwent readmission within 30 days of their initial hospitalization.
• Patients in the early readmission group were more likely to have government-sponsored Medicaid insurance and were significantly associated with an increased Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (SDI), lower serum hemoglobin, and lower serum albumin.