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


OBJECTIVE
To assess the effect of prolonged hospital stay (>100 days) on overall bed occupancy in a modern teaching hospital.


METHODS
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 (>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.


CONCLUSIONS
Prolonged hospitalizations have a significant impact on bed occupancy. Targeting these very long (>100 days) hospital stays may better improve overall efficiency, compared to targeting mean or median length of stay.
Regional Nephrology Unit, Level 11, Belfast City Hospital, 51 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT97AB, UK. mquinn05@qub.ac.uk
M P
MP
Quinn
A E
AE
Courtney
D G
DG
Fogarty
D
D
O'reilly
C
C
Cardwell
P T
PT
McNamee
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001509:Bed Occupancy; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009660:Northern Ireland