Length of stay in the clinical wards in a hospital after introducing a multiprofessional discharge team: An effectiveness improvement report

Emergency overcrowding is a problem in hospitals worldwide. The expansion of wards has limitations. Hospital administrative leaders are constantly looking for opportunities to improve the efficiency of resource use. This is a care improvement study with a quasi-experimental design. We created a hosp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of hospital medicine 2024-02, Vol.19 (2), p.101-107
Main Authors: Falcetta, Mariana R R, Rados, Dimitris V, Molina, Karine, Oliveira, Daiana, Pozza, Caroline Dalla, Schaan, Beatriz D
Format: Article
Language:English
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Length of stay
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Summary:Emergency overcrowding is a problem in hospitals worldwide. The expansion of wards has limitations. Hospital administrative leaders are constantly looking for opportunities to improve the efficiency of resource use. This is a care improvement study with a quasi-experimental design. We created a hospital discharge team (HDT) to solve the issues of prolonged hospital stays. The main interventions were active search and resolution of prolongation of stay and multi-disciplinary huddles. We developed strategies with different hospital units to expedite the processing of patients near discharge. Length of stay (LOS), morning hospital discharges, readmission rates, and bed usage were compared before (2018) and after (2019) HDT implementation. There was a reduction in the mean LOS of 1.8 days (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.9 to -2.6; p 
ISSN:1553-5592
1553-5606
1553-5606
DOI:10.1002/jhm.13286