It amazes me that Dr Ashish Jha, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health needed to point out this rather obvious fact.

Thinking readmissions are linked to quality is to my mind a concept that is as clumsy as using the number of taxis leaving an airport to try and judge the quality of customer service an airline is providing.

In my opinion the discussions about quality aren’t going to even get started until Hospitals start effectively documenting precisely who is going in and out of the front door and why.