• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2021

Objectives: Many conditions of the oral and maxillofacial region require hospitalization and in-patient care. The average length of stay (LOS) of these patients varies and is usually affected by multiple confounding variables. However, even with an increasing number of hospital admissions, published evidence on the factors that affect the LOS of oral and maxillofacial patients is lacking. Therefore, this study assessed the LOS of in-patients at the oral and maxillofacial surgery department of a government-funded, multi-specialty hospital in Malaysia, based on their reasons for admission and other factors. Materials and Methods: Our samples were collected retrospectively over a 5-year period and included patients with maxillofacial infections, post-trauma stabilization, facial bone fracture surgery, benign and malignant lesion surgery, dentoalveolar surgery, and other maxillofacial surgeries as reasons for admission. Factors potentially affecting LOS were also recorded, and their significance was determined using multiple logistic regression analyses. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: A total of 1,380 patients were included in this study. Most (84.5%) of our in-patients were of Malay ethnicity, and males outnumbered females in our sample by 502 subjects. The median LOS of our in-patients was 3 days. Sex, ethnicity, age, reason for admission, and American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) classification were factors that significantly affected LOS. Conclusion: The median LOS reported in this study was 3 days. LOS was significantly affected by sex, ethnicity, age, reason of admission and ASA classification.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.112-129
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• 1996

Background : A small number of high cost patients usually spend a larger proportion of scarce health resources. Aged, long-term care and readmitted patients usually belong to these high cost patient group. Among others, long length of stay and readmission can be reduced by checking its cause, and these are the areas needed most of quality improvement activity. Characteristics of high cost medical users between health insurance program and medical assistance program were reviewed. Methods : The inpatient claims of health insurance and medical assistance program were analyzed. Patients were divided by 6 groups; long-term, mid-term, short-term, readmitted, cancer and aged. We defined high cost patients as those who had spent one and half million won and over per 6 months. Characteristics of high cost patients for each group were reviewed. Results : medical assistance patients used much more resources than the insured members in the average hospital cost per case but less in daily hospital cost. The former had a longer length of stay and had much heavier diseases. Major diseases of both group were cancer, diseases of circulatory system and chronic degenerative diseases. Gallstone and schizophrenia were more in the insured program. However, pulmonary tuberculosis, asthma were more common among the medical assistance patients. Early readmission before 2 weeks were 28-30% of the total readmission. Readmission rate in the malignat neoplasm and renal failure were 80% and more. Q.A program should be installed to prevent unnecessary readmissions. Conclusion : Almost 30% of early readmissions and admissions due to complications and long length of stay should be reviewed carefully to keep cost down and to enhance the quality of hospital care.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.357-371
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aims to investigate factors related to long-term length of stay (LOS) of patients with chronic diseases in Korean veterans hospitals. Methods: The subjects were 196 elderly patients with chronic disease staying in the hospital for more than 10 days, Data were collected by the survey of patients with structured questionnaires and medical records review by nurses from July 15 to August 10, 2019. Collected data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The present and desired LOS were 37.78±32.66 days and 60.87±45.95 days, respectively. Factors affecting hospital LOS were found to be main disease (genitourinary) (p<.001), assistance in activities of daily living (p<.001), area of hospital (p<.001), payment of medical fees (p=.026), hospital satisfaction (p=.036) and the explanatory power of these variables was 26.4%. The most common health problems that need to be solved after discharge were symptom alleviation and health promotion. These problems can be solved using community-based facility services or visiting medical-welfare services (especially home care nursing). Conclusion: In order to reduce hospital LOS, the following measures are required: personalized self-management education, provision of transportation services for dialysis therapy of inactive patients, linking patients with visiting medical-welfare services including home care nursing and mobile healthcare services, operation of the case management system including the notice of the discharge date at admission, interim check of patient status, and connecting the patient with community resources or transferring the patient to long-term care facilities at discharge.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.409-415
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• 2019

Background: Postoperative chylothorax may be caused by iatrogenic injury of the collateral lymphatic ducts after thoracic surgery. Although traditional treatment could be considered in most cases, resolution may be slow. Radiological interventions have recently been developed to manage postoperative chylothorax. This study aimed to compare radiological interventions and conservative management in patients with postoperative chylothorax. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed periprocedural drainage time, length of hospital stay, and nil per os (NPO) duration in 7 patients who received radiological interventions (intervention group [IG]) and in 9 patients who received conservative management (non-intervention group [NG]). Results: The baseline characteristics of the patients in the IG and NG were comparable; however, the median drainage time and median length of hospital stay after detection of chylothorax were significantly shorter in the IG than in the NG (6 vs. 10 days, p=0.036 and 10 vs. 20 days, p=0.025, respectively). NPO duration after chylothorax detection and total drainage duration were somewhat shorter in the IG than in the NG (5 vs. 7 days and 8 vs. 14 days, respectively). Conclusion: This study showed that radiological interventions reduced the duration of drainage and the length of hospital stay, allowing an earlier return to normal life. To overcome several limitations of this study, a prospective, randomized controlled trial with a larger number of patients is recommended.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1115-1119
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• 2013

Background: Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a serious complication following chemotherapy and is associated with significant mortality and financial expenditure. The aim of this study was to evaluate risk factors for longer length of stay (LOS) and mortality and cost of treatment among hospitalized adults with cancer who developed febrile neutropenia in Thailand. Materials and Methods: Information on illness of inpatients and casualties came from hospitals nationwide and from hospital withdrawals from the 3 health insurance schemes in fiscal 2010. The data covered 96% of the population and were analyzed by age groups, hospital level, and insurance year schemes in patients with febrile neutropenia. Results: A total of 5,809 patients were identified in the study. The mortality rate was 14%. The median LOS was 8.67 days and 69% of patients stayed for longer than 5 days. On bivariate analysis, age, cancer type, and infectious complications (bacteremia/sepsis, hypotension, fungal infections, and pneumonia) were significantly associated with longer LOS and death. On multivariate analysis, acute leukemia and infectious complications were linked with longer LOS and death significantly. The median cost of hospitalized FN was THB 33,686 (USD 1,122) with the highest cost observed in acute leukemia patients. Conclusions: FN in adult patients results in significant mortality in hospitalized Thai patients. Factors associated with increased mortality include older age (>70), acute leukemia, comorbidity, and infectious complications.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.413-422
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• 2012

In this study, we developed the severity-adjusted length of stay (LOS) model for acute myocardial infarction patients using data from the hospital discharge survey and proposed management of medical quality and development of policy. The dataset was taken from 2,309 database of the hospital discharge survey from 2004 to 2006. The severity-adjusted LOS model for the acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients was developed by data mining analysis. From decision making tree model, the main reasons for LOS of AMI patients were CABG and comorbidity. The difference between severity-adjusted LOS from the ensemble model and real LOS was compared and it was confirmed that insurance type and location of hospital were statistically associated with LOS. And to conclude, hospitals should develop the severity-adjusted LOS model for frequent diseases to manage LOS variations efficiently and apply it into the medical information system.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.22-45
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• 2004

This study was performed to identify factors affecting the profitability of private hospitals in Korea different and to make informations that could be very helpful to hospitals in improving profitability. Data used in this study were collected from 112 hospitals with complete general data of present conditions as well as financial statements(balance sheets, income statements). They were chosen from hospitals that passed the standardization audit undertaken by the Korean Hospital Association from 1998 to 2001 for the purpose of accrediting training hospitals. The dependent variables were used operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues as proxy indicators for profitability. The independent variables were ownership type, location, bed size, period of establishment, debt to total assets, current ratio, fixed ratio, total asset turnover, average length of stay, bed occupancy rate, admission ratio of outpatients, personnel costs per adjusted inpatient, and fiscal years. The factors had significantly positive effect on operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues were bed size, total asset turnover. And the factors had significantly negative effect on operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues were period of establishment, debt to total assets, average length of stay, personnel costs per adjusted inpatient. The adjusted $R^2$ of multiple regression equation was 25.2%, 21.4% respectively. It is very important for private hospitals to improve profitability by raising total asset turnover, and reducing debt to total assets, average length of stay, and personnel costs per adjusted inpatient using the rational and efficient business strategy.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1424-1432
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• 2009

For the efficient management of hospital sickbeds, it is important to predict the length of stay (LoS) of appendicitis patients. This study analyzed the patient data to find factors that show high positive correlation with LoS, build LoS prediction models using neural network and decision tree models, and compare their performance. In order to increase the prediction accuracy, we applied the ensemble techniques such as bagging and boosting. Experimental results show that decision tree model which was built with less number of variables shows prediction accuracy almost equal to that of neural network model, and that bagging is better than boosting. In conclusion, since the decision tree model which provides better explanation than neural network model can well predict the LoS of appendicitis patients and can also be used to select the input variables, it is recommended that hospitals make use of the decision tree techniques more actively.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.107-114
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• 2016

Background: Over the last few decades, because hospitals in South Korea also have undergone dramatic changes, Korean hospitals traditionally have provided specialized health care services in the health care market. Inner Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (IHI) measures hospital caseloads based on patient proportions, independent of patient volumes. However, IHI that rely solely on patient proportions might be problematic for larger hospitals that provide a high number of diagnosis categories, as the patient proportions in each category are naturally relatively smaller in such hospitals. Therefore, recently developed novel measure, category medical specialization (CMS) is based on patient volumes as well as patient proportions. Methods: We examine the distribution of hospital specialization score by hospital size and investigate association between each hospital specialization and length of stay per case and hospital cost per case using Korean National Health Insurance Service-cohort sample data from 2002 to 2013. Results: Our results show that IHI show a decreasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type but CMS show an increasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type. Further, inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter length of stay per case (IHI: B=-0.104, p<0.0001; CMS: B=-0.044, p=0.001) and inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter hospital cost per case (IHI: B=-0.110, p=0.002; CMS: B=-0.118, p=<0.0001). Conclusion: This study may help hospital policymakers and hospital administrators to understand the effects of hospital specialization strategy on hospital performance under recent changes in the Korean health care environment.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-212
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• 2011

Objectives: This study investigates the relationship between nurse staffing levels and differences in patient outcomes in terms of average length of stay, in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy that differentiates fees for inpatients on the basis of nurse-to-bed ratios. Methods: We obtained information on inpatients from health insurance claims data published by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service(HIRA) in 2008, organizational factors(type of hospital, ownership) from the records of the hospital report system in 2008, and nurse staffing levels, which were graded on a scale of 1 to 7, from data compiled between December 15, 2007, and September 20, 2008. The data were segregated according to type of hospital and quarter and finally 3,517 records of 1,182 hospitals were analyzed using multi-level analysis. Results: The average length of stay in grade 1~6 hospitals was lower than that in grade 7 ones, but the difference was much below one day. No significant difference was found among different grades in tertiary hospitals. Further, variations in staffing levels did not result in any significant difference in the in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate. Conclusions: High nurse staffing levels did not result in better patient outcomes compared with low staffing levels. We therefore recommend modifying the above nurse staffing policy so as to make it more effective in improving patient outcomes.