Why is the average length of stay Important?

The average length of stay in hospitals (ALOS) is often used as an indicator of efficiency. All other things being equal, a shorter stay will reduce the cost per discharge and shift care from inpatient to less expensive post-acute settings. The ALOS refers to the average number of days that patients spend in hospital.

Is length of stay a quality measure?

Hospital mortality, readmission and length of stay (LOS) are commonly used measures for quality of care.

How do shorter hospital stays affect patients?

Improving and reducing length of stay (LOS) improves financial, operational, and clinical outcomes by decreasing the costs of care for a patient. It can also improve outcomes by minimizing the risk of hospital-acquired conditions.

Why is Los important?

With hospital care costs in the United States reaching $377.5 billion per year,2 addressing length of a hospital stay can positively impact that number. A longer LOS also increases the likelihood of a hospital-acquired condition (HAC), which harms patients and contributes to an even longer and costlier stay.

Do hospitals keep patients longer than needed?

Long-term care hospitals — which care for people whose medical conditions require relatively lengthy treatment — are keeping patients longer than necessary because of the way that Medicare determines payment rates, according to a study from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Why are hospital stays shorter today?

Treatment advances, including new drug therapies, have also contributed to fewer and shorter hospital stays as have as cost-management controls and alternative forms of health care organization and payment. In 1980, the rate of hospitalization was 168 per 1,000 population.

Why is quality of care important in healthcare?

Quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes. It is based on evidence-based professional knowledge and is critical for achieving universal health coverage.

Why do we measure quality in healthcare?

Quality measurement is important for quality assurance and accountability to make sure that providers are delivering good-quality care but they are also vital for quality improvement programmes to ensure that these interventions lead to increases in care quality.

What is the length of stay theory?

Length of stay is the number of nights spent in the unit, including home leave of up to 3 nights plus Saturday and Sunday. Count the number of nights according to whether the patient was occupying a bed at midnight. However, if a patient dies on the day of admission, a length of stay of 1 day can be recorded.

What affects length of stay in hospital?

Previous studies in HICs, have identified factors such as age, gender, injury severity, hospital mortality, insurance type and hospital location as predictors of hospital charges and length of stay for injuries [6–10].

Why are hospital stays shorter?

Is patient length of stay related to quality of care?

LOS is a widely used indicator of hospital performance. Most commonly, it is viewed as an indicator of hospital efficiency and as a surrogate measure for costs, with hospitals having long average LOSs considered relatively inefficient in the use of resources and those with low LOSs considered to be efficient.