Excessively long hospital stays after trauma are not related to the severity of illness: let's aim to the right target!

IMPORTANCE: Reduction in length of hospital stay is a veritable target in reducing the overall costs of health care. However, many existing approaches are flawed because the assumptions of what cause excessive length of stay are incorrect; we methodically identified the right targets in this study.
OBJECTIVE: To identify the causes of excessively prolonged hospitalization (ExProH) in trauma patients.
DESIGN: The trauma registry, billing databases, and medical records of trauma admissions were reviewed. Excessively prolonged hospitalization was defined by the standard method used by insurers, which is a hospital stay that exceeds the Diagnosis Related Group-based trim point. The causes of ExProH were explored in a unique potentially avoidable days database, used by our hospital's case managers to track discharge delays.
SETTING: Level I academic trauma center. PARTICIPANTS: Adult trauma patients admitted between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2010. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Excessively prolonged hospitalization and hospital cost.
RESULTS: Of 3237 patients, 155 (5%) had ExProH. The patients with ExProH compared with non-ExProH patients were older (mean [SD] age, 53 [21] vs 47 [22] years, respectively; P = .001), were more likely to have blunt trauma (92% vs 84%, respectively; P = .03), were more likely to be self-payers (16% vs 11%, respectively; P = .02) or covered by Medicare/Medicaid (41% vs 30%, respectively; P = .002), were more likely to be discharged to post-acute care facilities than home (65% vs 35%, respectively; P < .001), and had higher hospitalization cost (mean, $54 646 vs $18 444, respectively; P < .001). Both groups had similar Injury Severity Scores, Revised Trauma Scores, baseline comorbidities, and in-hospital complication rates. Independent predictors of mortality were discharge to a rehabilitation facility (odds ratio = 4.66; 95% CI, 2.71-8.00; P < .001) or other post-acute care facility (odds ratio = 5.04; 95% CI, 2.52-10.05; P < .001) as well as insurance type that was Medicare/Medicaid (odds ratio = 1.70; 95% CI, 1.06-2.72; P = .03) or self-pay (odds ratio = 2.43; 95% CI, 1.35-4.37; P = .003). The reasons for discharge delays were clinical in only 20% of the cases. The remaining discharges were excessively delayed because of difficulties in rehabilitation facility placement (47%), in-hospital operational delays (26%), or payer-related issues (7%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: System-related issues, not severity of illness, prolong hospital stay excessively. Cost-reduction efforts should target operational bottlenecks between acute and postacute care.