TY  - JOUR
T1  - Relapse after hospital admission for copd: Are routine outpatient follow-up visits the way to go?
AU  - Schermer TJ, Lucas PF, Heijdra YF
Y1  - 2011/04/25
N1  - 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.145
JO  - Archives of Internal Medicine
SP  - 782
EP  - 790
VL  - 171
IS  - 8
N2  - 
Our first comment is a methodological one. The authors have looked at the risk of emergency department visits and readmissions in the 30-day period after hospital discharge because most preventable readmissions occur within this time frame. However, it was recently demonstrated that exacerbations in COPD are not random events but cluster together in time such that there is a high-risk period for recurrence in the 8-week period after the initial exacerbation.2 Knowing this, we wondered if the conclusion from the study by Sharma et al1 remains the same if a 60-day follow-up period is applied.

SN  - 0003-9926
M3  - doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.145
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2011.145
ER  -