An analysis of order utilization and overall costs secondary to an extended length of stay in hospitalized patients pending discharge to long term care facilities during the peak of Omicron

Abstract

During the covid pandemic there was an influx of patients admitted to hospitals worldwide. This resulted in a presumptive overuse of resources, increased utilization costs, and decrease in hospital bed availability. This study focuses on patients admitted with a positive covid test, who required transfer to a long-term health facility after the acuity of their symptoms no longer required hospitalization but necessitated an extended length of stay due to acceptance into these facilities. Such facilities included: alternative living facility, skilled nursing facility, psychiatric institutions, or hospice. Wherein these facilities required a negative Covid PCR test or required a certain time frame to have elapsed after a positive test prior to accepting or recovering a patient. This study utilized patient records from Keralty Hospital, with admission during the 2022 peak of Omicron (January 31, 2022- February 13, 2022). Patient inclusion criteria was if they had a positive covid test on admission and experienced an extended length of stay over 2 days pending discharge to a long-term care facility. A quantitative/qualitative analysis was conducted of all orders placed subsequent to the first discharge order, and the number of additional days spent at the hospital. Correlations regarding total bed cost, and total overall, were then calculated using single tailed p values utilizing Prism 9 GraphPad software. Our research findings indicate there was a significant correlation between the number of extended hospitalization days and total bed costs but no correlation in the total overall costs or initial length of stay for each patient.