title: Reducing hospital inpatient lengths of stay.
abstract: This article describes the importance of hospital length of stay as an indicator of health care efficiency and provides guidance concerning the development of data for length of stay reduction. It identifies variables involved in length of stay evaluation including the mean stay, median stay, and length of stay standard deviation. It describes how consistent length of stay data can be generated and analyzed for local populations and benchmark communities.
authors.affiliation: Home Health Services, St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center, Syracuse, New York, USA.
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Noetscher
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009518:New York; D009738:Nursing Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D014481:United States