We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Family Medicine Patients Have Shorter Length of Stay When Cared for on a Family Medicine Inpatient Service.
- Authors
Garrison, Gregory M.; Keuseman, Rachel L.; Boswell, Christopher L.; Horn, Jennifer L.; Nielsen, Nathaniel T.; Nielsen, Megan L.
- Abstract
Introduction: Hospitalists have been shown to have shorter lengths of stays than physicians with concurrent outpatient practices. However, hospitalists at academic medical centers may be less aware of local resources that can support the hospital to home transition for local primary care patients. We hypothesized that local family medicine patients admitted to a family medicine inpatient service have shorter length of stay than those admitted to general hospitalist services which also care for tertiary patients at an academic medical center. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted at an academic medical center with a department of family medicine providing primary care to over 80 000 local patients. A total of 3100 consecutive family medicine patients admitted to either the family medicine inpatient service or a general medicine inpatient service over 3 years were studied. The primary outcome was length of stay, which was adjusted using multivariate linear regression for demographics, prior utilization, diagnosis, and disease severity. Results: Adjusted length of stay was 33% longer (95% CI 24%-44%) for local family medicine patients admitted to general medicine inpatient services as compared with the family medicine inpatient service. Readmission rates within 30 days were not different (19% vs 16%, P =.14). Conclusions: Local primary care patients were safely discharged from the hospital sooner on the family medicine inpatient service than on general medicine inpatient services. This is likely because the family physicians staffing their inpatient service are more familiar with outpatient resources that can be effectively marshaled to help local patients with the transition from hospital to home.
- Subjects
ACADEMIC medical centers; CHI-squared test; CONFIDENCE intervals; CONTINUUM of care; FAMILY health; FAMILY services; FISHER exact test; LENGTH of stay in hospitals; LONGITUDINAL method; PRIMARY health care; QUESTIONNAIRES; REGRESSION analysis; RESEARCH funding; MULTIPLE regression analysis; RETROSPECTIVE studies; SEVERITY of illness index; PATIENT readmissions; DATA analysis software; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; TERTIARY care
- Publication
Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 2019, Vol 10, p1
- ISSN
2150-1319
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/2150132719840517