Clinical studyRelation between length of hospital stay and costs of care for patients with community-acquired pneumonia☆
Section snippets
Study sites and patients
The Pneumonia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT) cohort study was conducted from October 1991 through March 1994 at four hospital sites: hospital A, a 427-bed community teaching hospital, and hospital B, a 942-bed university teaching hospital, both in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; hospital C, an 899-bed university teaching hospital in Boston, Massachusetts; and hospital D, a 637-bed university teaching hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (8). The sample for this study was limited to
Results
Of the 982 PORT inpatients enrolled at hospitals A, B, and C, 863 (88%) met the inclusion criteria for this study; 119 inpatients were excluded for one or more of the following reasons: death before hospital discharge (n = 51), outlier for cost (n = 48), outlier for length of stay (n = 22), unverified cost data (n = 16), transfer to another acute care hospital (n = 8), and missing detailed billing data (n = 5).
Discussion
This prospective, multicenter study of the relation between length of stay and daily costs demonstrated a common pattern of resource use throughout the hospital stay, with a substantial variation in the magnitude of average daily and total costs among three hospitals. The pattern was characterized by the highest level of use within the first 3 days of hospitalization and the lowest level of use on the day of discharge and the 2 days preceding discharge. Hospital room costs were relatively
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2022, American Journal of the Medical SciencesCitation Excerpt :In multiple logistic regression analysis, PSI class IV‒V and the 2 CT findings were independent factors for predicting prolonged hospitalization, suggesting that chest CT scan may contribute to enhancing the prediction of LOS in CAP patients with CPPE or empyema. A previous study noted that the LOS occupies a higher portion of hospital cost than diagnostic tests and antimicrobial therapy.24 Furthermore, LOS is a validated parameter to estimate clinical outcome of patients with infectious diseases.25
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This research was conducted as part of the Pneumonia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT) Project funded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (grant number R01 HS06468). Dr. Fine was also supported as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar.