Objective: Community-based integrated care wards (CICW) play a role in supporting the return of patients to their homes. However, studies investigating the readmission risk associated with CICW are lacking. To investigate the influence of CICW on readmission, we conducted a retrospective cohort study among Japanese elderly people.Materials and Methods: This study used data from the Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) and medical records of the Hamada Medical Center, Shimane Prefecture in 2014–2019. The number of subjects and readmission in each hospitalization case (general ward only [GW] and CICW) were 1,521 and 416 subjects and 152 and 49 cases, respectively. We selected the hospitalization cases for heart failure (I30–I52), ischemic heart disease (I20–I25), pneumonia (J09–J18), chronic lower respiratory tract diseases (J40–J47), intestinal diseases (K55–K64), cerebrovascular disease (I60–I69), gallbladder, bile duct, and pancreatic diseases (K80–K87) from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). The hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for readmission via a CICW were estimated using a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model.Results: The HRs for readmission associated with CICW were not different between the shorter and longer durations, considering the percentage of CICW stay. Compared with GW cases, the HR of CICW cases was 0.40 (95% CI, 0.17–0.92) in coordination with outside agencies of hospital discharge support. While the HR of GW cases was 2.35 (95% CI 1.01–5.47), a significantly increased risk was observed in people living alone. A similar risk was not observed in CICW cases with the HR of 0.56 (95% CI 0.15–2.07).Conclusion: The present study observed decreased risk of readmission among the patients discharged from CICW, compared to GW. Further research is required to clarify the causal factors for this decreased risk.

Introduction: This study aims to examine the actual conditions of Institutional Research (IR) activities and operations and explore the differences between the items analyzed by the IR organization and those that nursing faculty members would like to compare with other Japanese nursing universities.　Method: We conducted a questionnaire survey among 48 nursing universities in Japan (424 instructors) in December 2020.　Results: Of the total 116 participants, the number of participants who responded to being aware of both the name and role of IR and having an IR organization in their universities was 51 (44.0%) and 82 (70.7%), respectively. Teaching-related items ranked high in both the items analyzed by the IR organization and those that nursing faculty members would like to compare with other nursing universities. For the survey of admission applicants and graduates, the degree of the desire to be compared with other nursing universities was higher than that of being analyzed by the IR organization (p<0.05).　Discussion: Although a greater number of IR organizations are being established, awareness of these remains low within Japanese nursing universities. Additionally, there are differences between the items analyzed by the IR organization and those that nursing faculty members would like to compare with other Japanese nursing universities. Therefore, the goal is to achieve a common understanding of IR activities and operations at each nursing university.