Acute Kidney Injury Hospitalization Linked to Higher Risk of Readmission and Mortality.

A study supported by the National Institutes of Health found that people who experienced acute kidney injury (AKI) during a hospitalization were more likely to revisit the hospital or die shortly after discharge, compared to people hospitalized without AKI. During the year following discharge, those hospitalized with AKI were re-hospitalized nearly 60% more often than those hospitalized without AKI and more than twice as likely to die. Heart failure, sepsis, and pneumonia were among the most common causes for readmission after discharge with an AKI hospitalization.