Reducing Hospital Stays with Community Wide Programs

Abstract

This study provided an update concerning programs for reduction of inpatient lengths of stay in the three Syracuse hospitals. The study included evaluation of the impact of these programs by severity of illness. The Difficult to Place program involved the identification of patients with extended stays in the hospitals because of the need for long term care services in the community. A community wide list of Difficult to Place patients was distributed by the Hospital Executive Council each week. In addition, the Syracuse hospitals and the Hospital Executive Council implemented the Subacute and Complex Care Programs for patients with extended stays. These inpatients included those who required expensive medication or patients with infectious diseases and offsite transportation. The study data indicated that Difficult to Place patients in the combined Syracuse hospitals amounted to 20.4 - 20.5 percent of new admissions to nursing homes between 2017 and 2019. The data also demonstrated that the number of Subacute and Complex Care patients for the combined hospitals amounted to 5.7 to 6.6 percent of the Difficult to Place populations. The study data indicated that adult medicine lengths of stay declined by 0.10 patient days, from 4.91 to 4.81 days between 2017 and 2019, a reduction of 12,622 patient days or an average daily census of 34.6. The study data indicated that adult surgery lengths of stay declined by 0.22 patient days, from 5.55 to 5.33 days between 2017 and 2019, a reduction of 8681 patient days, or an average daily census of 23.8.