Cardwell, Christopher

Courtney, A.E.

Fogarty, Damian

McNamee, P.T.

O'Reilly, Dermot

Quinn, M.

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 (&gt;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 (&gt;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 (&gt;100 days) hospital stays may better improve overall efficiency, compared to targeting mean or median length of stay.</p

Quinn, M P

Courtney, A E

Fogarty, D G

O'Reilly, D.

Cardwell, C

McNamee, P T

Queen's University Belfast Research Portal

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

M.P. Quinn

A.E. Courtney

D.G. Fogarty

D. O'Reilly

C. Cardwell

P.T. McNamee

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https://pure.qub.ac.uk/ws/files/515867/Influence%20of%20prolonged%20hospitalization%20on%20overall%20bed%20occupancy%20-%20a%20five-year%20single-centre%20study.%20QJM%202007%20-%20O_'Reilly%20D,%20Cardwell%20CR..pdf

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

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