Waiting times for nursing-home placement: the impact of patients' choices.
OBJECTIVE
To identify patient characteristics and characteristics of long-term care facilities that significantly affect the waiting time for transfer from hospital to nursing home.


METHODS
Cohort study.


METHODS
All patients designated to be transferred from four Winnipeg hospitals between June 1, 1988, and May 31, 1989. The patients were followed up until placement, death or May 31, 1990.


METHODS
Length of time waiting for nursing-home placement and relative rates of placement.


RESULTS
The variable found to shorten the waiting time the most was the patient's choice of a for-profit or nonprofit secular facility; other significant variables were male sex, age of 75 to 84 years and occupancy of an acute care bed during the wait.


CONCLUSIONS
The province has three policy options: it can increase the proportion of secular nursing-home beds when new facilities are built; it can require that hospital patients accept an interim nursing-home placement pending transfer to the nursing home of their choice; or it can tie the sponsorship of new facilities to a formula based on the ethnoreligious distribution of the population currently aged 55 to 64 years.
Shapiro
E
E
Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
Tate
R B
RB
Tabisz
E
E
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006707:Homes for the Aged / Q000600:supply & distribution; D006742:Hospital Bed Capacity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008350:Manitoba; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000600:supply & distribution; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014850:Waiting Lists