Influence of prolonged hospitalization on overall bed occupancy: a five-year single-centre study

Background: Effective bed use is crucial to an efficient NHS. Current targets suggest a decrease in mean occupancy as the most appropriate method of improving overall efficiency. The elderly and those suffering from complex medical problems are thought to account for a high proportion of overall bed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:QJM : An International Journal of Medicine 2007-09, Vol.100 (9), p.561-566
Main Authors: Quinn, M.P., Courtney, A.E., Fogarty, D.G., O'Reilly, D., Cardwell, C., McNamee, P.T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Bed Occupancy
Biological and medical sciences
Epidemiologic Methods
Female
General aspects
Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over - statistics & numerical data
Hospitals, Teaching
Humans
Length of Stay
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Miscellaneous
Northern Ireland
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
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Summary:Background: Effective bed use is crucial to an efficient NHS. Current targets suggest a decrease in mean occupancy as the most appropriate method of improving overall efficiency. The elderly and those suffering from complex medical problems are thought to account for a high proportion of overall bed occupancy. Aim: To assess the effect of prolonged hospital stay (>100 days) on overall bed occupancy in a modern teaching hospital. Design: Retrospective analysis. Methods: Analysis of all admission episodes (n = 117 178) over a five-year period in a large teaching hospital in a single UK region, serving a population of approximately 200 000. A logistic regression multi-factorial model was used to assess the effect of demographic and diagnostic variables on duration of stay. Results: A prolonged stay (>100 days) was seen in 648 admission episodes (0.6%). These accounted for 11% of the overall bed occupancy over the 5-year period. Excluding all prolonged admission episodes from our analysis made no difference to the overall median length of stay. Discussion: Prolonged hospitalizations have a significant impact on bed occupancy. Targeting these very long (>100 days) hospital stays may better improve overall efficiency, compared to targeting mean or median length of stay.
ISSN:1460-2725
1460-2393
DOI:10.1093/qjmed/hcm064