HCL 3050 Writing Assignment 1
Alisha Evans
Hundreds of people are admitted into hospitals across the country daily. Some only stay for
an ER visit, some are admitted for a few days, and sadly, some don’t make it out. Although the
majority of patients make it out of the hospital in a better condition, some have to return back to
the hospital because they have fallen ill again. When I was working as a technician at an
inpatient pharmacy, I would notice this trend. I would recognize names of patients who had been
there once or twice before after being discharged a week after their visit and always wondered
why they would be admitted back to the hospital so quickly after leaving. This trend is called
patient recidivism.
Recidivism is a term usually used to describe convicts that offend multiple times after being
released from prison. In this case, patient recidivism is when a patient is admitted to the hospital
shortly after being released. This trend usually happens to around 15-20% of patients (How to
Avoid Hospital Readmissions). For violent injuries the rate, is even higher at 45% (Gomez et al.,
