TITLE:
Addressing hospital length of stay outlier patients: A community wide approach
AUTHORS:
Ronald Lagoe, Louise Pernisi, Mary Luziani, Shelly Littau
KEYWORDS:
Hospital Utilization; Hospital Lengths of Stay; Hospital Outcomes
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.5 No.3,
January
29,
2014
ABSTRACT: Length of stay outlier patients, who remain in hospitals
for extended periods of time, is an important challenge to the improvement of
health care efficiency. This study identified outlier patients and programs to
address them in the metropolitan area of Syracuse, New York. It demonstrated
that, during 2013, outlier patients accounted for 2.4 percent of adult medicine
discharges and an excess average daily census of 53.3 patients in the Syracuse
hospitals. During 2013, outlier patients accounted for 4.3 percent of adult surgery
discharges and an excess average daily census of 44.1 patients. In two studies,
the Syracuse hospitals identified the need for multiple intravenous therapy,
extensive wound care, and total parenteral nutrition in the community, as major
causes of outlier stays in hospitals. Each of the hospitals has developed a program
with a long term care facility to address these needs. Efforts to address
outlier lengths of stay are also focusing on Potentially Preventable Complications
in Syracuse. The mean length of stay for inpatients with post admissions
complications was almost three times the stay for the medical/surgical population
during 2013.