Date of Conferral

2-11-2025

Degree

Doctor of Healthcare Administration (D.H.A.)

School

Health Services

Advisor

Matt Frederiksen-England

Abstract

Rising costs in healthcare is a social problem in the United States with medical errors contributing to the rising costs; communication has been identified as a key contributor to medical errors. The purpose of this quantitative study was to further examine if there was a correlation between the independent variable of doctor communication scores and the dependent variable of readmission rates of coronary artery bypass graft surgery patients. This research could contribute to the social problem of rising healthcare costs specifically by identifying variables that may be contributors to costs due to errors. The theoretical framework was Donabedian’s theory of evaluating the quality of medical care, regarding structure and processes that lead to outcomes in medical care. The specific research question addressed was if there was a statistical correlation between hospital readmission rates of coronary artery bypass graft surgery and doctor communication score. From the available secondary data on Hospital Compare, analysis was conducted using simple regression to determine if there was a correlation between the dependent and independent variables in the states of California, Michigan, and Ohio. Key results of the study showed that the null hypothesis was confirmed, and there was no statistically significant correlation of the variables. It is recommended to further research other areas that may be contributors of communication and medical errors and to repeat the study using the entire country as the study sample size was small. The study is significant because it adds to the knowledge base of communication in healthcare that may potentially lead to positive social change in the area of reducing healthcare costs by error reduction.

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