Discharge before noon tied to longer length of stay
(HealthDay)—Discharge before noon is associated with longer length of stay among adult medical and surgical patients, according to a study published online Dec. 30 in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
In a retrospective analysis, Alvin Rajkomar, M.D., from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues examined whether discharge before noon is associated with length of stay. Data were obtained from adult medical and surgical discharges from July 2012 through April 2015 from a single academic center.
The researchers found that 16.9 percent of the 38,365 hospitalizations were discharged before noon, and the median length of stay was 3.7 days. Discharge before noon correlated with longer length of stay after adjustment (adjusted odds ratio, 1.043; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.003 to 1.086). The correlation was more pronounced in the 14,192 patients admitted emergently (adjusted odds ratio, 1.14; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.033 to 1.249).
"Although we cannot discern whether discharges were delayed to achieve discharge before noon, earlier discharge was associated with a longer length of stay, particularly among emergent admissions," the authors write.
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