초록
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors associated with long-term hospitalized patients in long-term care hospitals using the quality assessment data for long-term care hospitals by the Health Insurance Review. Methods: Among 1,376 long-term care hospitals, frequency analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the characteristics of these hospitals. Multiple linear regression was conducted to examine the associations between infrastructure characteristics, medical personnel characteristics, health outcomes and the proportion of long-term hospitalized patients. Results: The research findings indicate that the number of patients per doctor, the number of patients per nurse, and the number of patients per nursing staff were positively associated with the proportion of long-term hospitalized patients. Among health outcomes, a higher proportion of patients with more than a 5% weight loss compared to the previous month and the proportion of patients showing improvement in ADL, were more likely to have a lower proportion of long-term hospitalized patients. However the proportion of diabetic patients with HbA1c test results within the appropriate range was positively associated with the proportion of long-term hospitalized patients. Conclusion: The present study results provide fundamental data for the establishment of policies for long-term care hospitals. Based on this study, it is important to suggest screening methods for unnecessary long-term hospitalizations, such as sufficient medical personnel to improve the quality of care in long-term care hospitals. It is also necessary to clearly separate the roles of medical institutions and long-term care facilities and implement policies to support patients' social reintegration.