After leaving the hospital for treatment of three common conditions, older black people are more likely to be readmitted within 30 days than older white people

Overall, older blacks have 13% greater odds of being readmitted to the hospital while patients treated at hospitals that primarily serve minority populations have 23% greater odds of readmission within 30 days. Using national Medicare data that included more than 3 million hospital discharges for heart attack, congestive heart failure and pneumonia, researchers compared the rate of re-admissions for blacks and whites. To conform with other research, the researchers considered any non-black patients as white, which means that Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans were placed in the white category for the purposes of this study.