Luzerne County had 3,339 ‘potentially preventable hospitalizations’ in 2022, according to a new report, or 128.3 preventable hospitalizations per 10,000 residents ages 18 and older. The report also provides the number of hospitalizations and population-based rates for opioid overdose, opioid use disorder, maternal stays involving opioids, drug withdrawal in newborns, among other categories.
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Report: Local ‘potentially preventable hospitalizations’ higher than average

Luzerne County had 3,339 “potentially preventable hospitalizations” in 2022, according to a new report, or 128.3 preventable hospitalizations per 10,000 residents ages 18 and older. That’s higher than the statewide rate of 123.8 per 10,000.

The data comes from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, an independent agency that looked at information from General Acute Care hospitals to create the “2022 County-Level Healthcare Reports.” To determine what a potentially preventable hospitalization is, the Council used the Prevention Quality Indicators developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In short, AHRQ describes preventable hospitalizations as “admissions that might have been avoided through access to high-quality outpatient care.”

Put another way, hospitalizations are deemed preventable if proper primary care could have prevented them.

The Council’s report also provides the number of hospitalizations and population-based rates for opioid overdose, opioid use disorder, maternal stays involving opioids, drug withdrawal in newborns, breast cancer surgery, diabetes, sepsis (an existing infection that triggers a cascade of serious problems throughout the body), and C. Difficile infections (bacteria causing inflammation of the colon).

Here are Luzerne County’s hospitalization numbers for 2022, and the comparable state rates:

Opioid overdose — 58, for a rate of 21.3 per 100,000 residents age 15 and older, higher than the state rate of 20.9.

Opioid use disorder — 538, for a rate of 197.5 per 100,000 residents age 15 and older, lower than the state rate of 262.7.

Maternal stays involving opioids — 41, for a rate of 13.2 per 1,000 maternal stays ages 12-55, lower than the state rate of 14.8.

Drug withdrawal in newborns (Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome) — 27, for a rate of 9.2 hospitalizations per 1,000 newborn stays, higher than the state rate of 8.9.

Breast cancer surgery — 261, for a rate of 19.9 per 10,000 female residents age 18 and older, lower than the state rate of 20.6.

Diabetes — 837, for a rate of 25.6 per 10,000 residents of all ages, higher than the state rate of 21.7.

Sepsis — 3,462, for a rate of 133 per 10,000 residents age 18 and older, higher than the state rate of 110.8.

C. Difficile infection — 278, for a rate of 8.5 per 10,000 residents of all ages, higher than the state rate of 7.

All the data can be found online at phc4.org.