title: Patients' increased severity of illness drives up LOS around the country.
abstract: For the first time in two decades, lengths of stay at hospitals across the country are creeping upward, thanks to a corresponding increase in the severity of patients being treated in the acute care setting. Some experts say this trend is solid evidence that traditional utilization review has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced by more effective cost-containment efforts. While case management traditionally is oriented toward reducing overutilization, experts say underutilization of resources can hurt your bottom line, too, if it's having a negative effect on patient care. A second, largely untapped source of potential cost savings is identifying and addressing misutilization, namely medication errors and other mistakes that invariably lead to higher treatment costs--as well as possible litigation expenses--down the road.
mesh_terms: D019090:Case Management / Q000191:economics*; D003363:Cost Control; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000639:trends*; D019300:Medical Errors; D010343:Patient Admission; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States; D014600:Utilization Review