Health Policy Manag.  2022 Dec;32(4):347-355. 10.4332/KJHPA.2022.32.4.347.

A Multilevel Analysis about the Impact of Patient’s Willingness for Discharge on Successful Discharge from Long-term Care Hospitals

• Ghang H
• Lee Y

• KMID: 2538409
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4332/KJHPA.2022.32.4.347

Abstract

Background
Since November 2019, long-term care hospitals have been able to provide patients with discharging programs to support the elderly in the community. This study aimed to identify both patient- and hospital-level factors that affect successful community discharge from long-term care hospitals.
Methods
A multilevel logistic regression model was performed using hospitals as a clustering unit. The dependent variable was whether a patient stayed in the community for at least 30 days after discharge from a long-term care hospital. As for the patient-level independent variables, an agreement between a patient and the family about discharge, length of hospital stay, patient category, and residence at discharge were included. The number of beds and the ratio of long-stay patients were selected for the hospital-level factors. The sample size was 1,428 patients enrolled in the discharging program from November 2019 to December 2020.
Results
The number of patients who were discharged to the community and stayed at least for 30 days was 532 (37.3%). The intraclass correlation coefficient was 22.9%, indicating that hospital-level factors had a significant impact on successful community discharge. The odds ratio (OR) of successful community discharge increased by 1.842 times when the patients and their families agreed on discharge. The ORs also increased by 3.020 or 2.681 times, respectively when the patients planned to discharge to their own house or their child’s house compared to those who didn’t have a plan for residence at discharge. The ORs increased by 1.922 or 2.250 times when the hospitals were owned by corporate or private property compared to publicly owned hospitals. The ORs decreased by 0.602 or 0.520 times when the hospital was sized over 400 beds or located in small and medium-sized cities compared to less than 200 bedded hospitals or located in metropolitan cities.
Conclusion
The results of the study showed that the patients’ and their family’s willingness for discharge had a great impact on successful community discharge and the hospital-level factors played a significant role in it. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge and support long-term care hospitals to involve active in the patient discharge planning process.

Keyword

Long-term care; Patient discharge; Multilevel analysis