Primary health care and hospital interactions: effects for hospital length of stay.
OBJECTIVE
Norwegian healthcare services are divided between primary and secondary care providers. A growing problem is that every third patient of 75 years of age or more experiences an extended stay in a somatic hospital while waiting to be sent to primary healthcare services. The interaction between these two levels of healthcare services is analysed to examine the effect on a patient's length of stay in hospital.


METHODS
Recent studies have asserted that research on length of stay in hospital should include influential factors such as system variation and system characteristics, in addition to standardizing for case-mix. New organizational routines are identified in 50 Norwegian somatic hospitals. A multivariate linear regression is used in both a static and a dynamic model to explain variations in hospital length of stay and in additional length of stay (5% of stays are defined as outliers).


RESULTS
The study shows that newly specialized structures constructed to enhance the interaction between the two levels have had no effect. Length of stay is dependent on the capacity of the primary healthcare provider and on the share of elderly in the hospital catchment area, the type of patients, the procedure performed, and the characteristics of the hospital.


CONCLUSIONS
Variation in length of stay between hospitals is primarily explained by the capacity of primary healthcare providers. However, some support is found in the dynamic model that introduces the proposition that a hospital-owned hotel would decrease the length of stay of patients in hospital.
Kjekshus
Lars Erik
LE
SINTEF Health Research, Oslo and Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Department of Health Management and Health Economics, Health Management Research Program Norway (HORN), Oslo, Norway. larsek@sintef.no
D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D009664:Norway; D010346:Patient Care Management / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*