The rise in acute medical admissions

Patient trajectories in a Norwegian unit of municipal emergency beds

OBJECTIVE

The Coordination reform was implemented in Norway from 2012, aiming at seamless patient trajectories. All municipalities are required to establish emergency care beds (MEBs) to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. We aimed to examine occupancy rate, patient characteristics, diagnoses and discharge level of municipal care in a small MEB unit.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional, observational study.

SETTING

A two-bed emergency care unit.

SUBJECTS

All patients admitted to the unit during one year.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Patients' age and gender, comorbidity, main diagnoses and municipal care level on admission and discharge, diagnostic and therapeutic initiatives, occupancy rate.

RESULTS

Sixty admissions were registered, with total bed occupancy 194 days, and an occupancy rate of 0.27. The patients (median age 83 years, 57% women) had mostly infections, musculoskeletal symptoms or undefined conditions. Some 48% of the stays exceeded three days and 43% of the patients were subsequently transferred to nursing homes or hospitals.

CONCLUSION

Occupancy rate was low. Patient selection was not according to national standards, and stays were longer. Many patients were transferred to nursing homes, indicating that the unit was an intermediate pathway or a short cut to institutional care. It is unclear whether the unit avoided hospital admissions.

Impact of integrated health system changes, accelerated due to an earthquake, on emergency department attendances and acute admissions: a Bayesian change-point analysis

OBJECTIVE

To chart emergency department (ED) attendance and acute admission following a devastating earthquake in 2011 which lead to Canterbury's rapidly accelerated integrated health system transformations.

DESIGN

Interrupted time series analysis, modelling using Bayesian change-point methods, of ED attendance and acute admission rates over the 2008-2014 period.

SETTING

ED department within the Canterbury District Health Board; with comparison to two other district health boards unaffected by the earthquake within New Zealand.

PARTICIPANTS

Canterbury's health system services ∼500 000 people, with around 85 000 ED attendances and 37 000 acute admissions per annum.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

De-seasoned standardised population ED attendance and acute admission rates overall, and stratified by age and sex, compared before and after the earthquake.

RESULTS

Analyses revealed five global patterns: (1) postearthquake, there was a sudden and persisting decrease in the proportion of the population attending the ED; (2) the growth rate of ED attendances per head of population did not change between the pre-earthquake and postearthquake periods; (3) postearthquake, there was a sudden and persisting decrease in the proportion of the population admitted to hospital; (4) the growth rate of hospital admissions per head of the population declined between pre-earthquake and postearthquake periods and (5) the most dramatic reduction in hospital admissions growth after the earthquake occurred among those aged 65+ years. Extrapolating from the projected and fitted deseasoned rates for December 2014, ∼676 (16.8%) of 4035 projected hospital admissions were avoided.

CONCLUSIONS

While both necessarily and opportunistically accelerated, Canterbury's integrated health systems transformations have resulted in a dramatic and sustained reduction in ED attendances and acute hospital admissions. This natural intervention experiment, triggered by an earthquake, demonstrated that integrated health systems with high quality out-of-hospital care models are likely to successfully curb growth in acute hospital demand, nationally and internationally.

Acute admissions to a community hospital - health consequences: a randomized controlled trial in Hallingdal, Norway

BACKGROUND

Health care professionals in several countries are searching for alternatives to acute hospitalization. In Hallingdal, Norway, selected acute patients are admitted to a community hospital. The aim of this study was to analyse whether acute admission to a community hospital as an alternative to a general hospital had any positive or negative health consequences for the patients.

METHODS

Patients intended for acute admission to the local community hospital were asked to join a randomized controlled trial. One group of the enrolled patients was admitted as planned (group 1, n = 33), while another group was admitted to the general hospital (group 2, n = 27). Health outcomes were measured by the Nottingham Extended Activity of Daily Living Questionnaire and by collection of data concerning specialist and community health care services in a follow-up year.

RESULTS

After one year, no statistical significant differences in the level of daily function was found between group 1 (admissions to the community hospital) and group 2 (admissions to the general hospital). Group 1 had recorded fewer in-patient days at hospitals and nursing homes, as well as lower use of home nursing, than group 2. For outpatient referrals, the trend was the opposite. However, the differences between the two groups were not at a 5% level of statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

No statistical significant differences at a 5% level were found related to health consequences between the two randomized groups. The study however, indicates a consistent trend of health benefits rather than risk from acute admissions to a community hospital, as compared to the general hospital. Emergency admission and treatment at a lower-level facility than the hospital thus appears to be a feasible solution for a selected group of patients.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01069107 . Registered 2 April 2010.

Perceived quality of an alternative to acute hospitalization: an analytical study at a community hospital in Hallingdal, Norway

There is growing international interest in the geography of health care provision, with health care providers searching for alternatives to acute hospitalization. In Norway, the government has recently legislated for municipal authorities to develop local health services for a selected group of patients, with a quality equal to or better than that provided by hospitals for emergency admissions. General practitioners in Hallingdal, a rural district in southern Norway, have for several years referred acutely somatically ill patients to a community hospital, Hallingdal sjukestugu (HSS). This article analyzes patients' perceived quality of HSS to demonstrate factors applicable nationally and internationally to aid in the development of local alternatives to general hospitals. We used a mixed-methods approach with questionnaires, individual interviews and a focus group interview. Sixty patients who were taking part in a randomized, controlled study of acute admissions at HSS answered the questionnaire. Selected patients were interviewed about their experiences and a focus group interview was conducted with representatives of local authorities, administrative personnel and health professionals. Patients admitted to HSS reported statistically significant greater satisfaction with several care aspects than those admitted to the general hospital. Factors highlighted by the patients were the quiet and homelike atmosphere; a small facility which allowed them a good overall view of the unit; close ties to the local community and continuity in the patient-staff relationship. The focus group members identified some overarching factors: an interdisciplinary and holistic approach, local ownership, proximity to local general practices and close cooperation with the specialist health services at the hospital. Most of these factors can be viewed as general elements relevant to the development of local alternatives to acute hospitalization both nationally and internationally. This study indicates that perceived quality should be one of the main motivations for developing alternatives to general hospital admissions.

The choice of alternatives to acute hospitalization: a descriptive study from Hallingdal, Norway

BACKGROUND

Hallingdal is a rural region in southern Norway. General practitioners (GPs) refer acutely somatically ill patients to any of three levels of care: municipal nursing homes, the regional community hospital or the local general hospital. The objective of this paper is to describe the patterns of referrals to the three different somatic emergency service levels in Hallingdal and to elucidate possible explanations for the differences in referrals.

METHODS

Quantitative methods were used to analyse local patient statistics and qualitative methods including focus group interviews were used to explore differences in referral rates between GPs. The acute somatic admissions from the six municipalities of Hallingdal were analysed for the two-year period 2010-11 (n = 1777). A focus group interview was held with the chief municipal medical officers of the six municipalities. The main outcome measure was the numbers of admissions to the three different levels of acute care in 2010-11. Reflections of the focus group members about the differences in admission patterns were also analysed.

RESULTS

Acute admissions at a level lower than the local general hospital ranged from 9% to 29% between the municipalities. Foremost among the local factors affecting the individual doctor's admission practice were the geographical distance to the different places of care and the GP's working experience in the local community.

CONCLUSION

The experience from Hallingdal demonstrates that GPs use available alternatives to hospitalization but to varying degrees. This can be explained by socio-demographic factors and factors related to the medical reasons for admission. However, there are also important local factors related to the individual GP and the structural preparedness for alternatives in the community.

Effect of a holiday service reduction period on a hospital's emergency department access block

OBJECTIVE

To study the effect of holiday service reductions, consisting of bed and theatre closures, in a tertiary paediatric hospital on various measures of ED occupancy, including access block.

METHODS

Retrospective comparative observational study of all 2142 ED attendances during a holiday hospital service reduction period (the 'study period'), when the hospital's bed capacity was reduced by 17% and all elective operating theatres were closed, and all 4255 attendances during two control periods at a major tertiary children's hospital, using the ED's information system to collect data. The following outcome measures were derived from the raw data and compared between the control and study groups: proportion of all intended inpatient admissions that were actual inpatient admissions; proportion of intended inpatient admissions that were discharged home from the ED; proportion of all admissions that were ED admissions; access block, that is, the percentage of patients requiring inpatient admission who have a total ED time of greater than 8 h; the mean number of patients in the ED at any particular minute ('ED occupancy'); median waiting times to reach both the general ward and the operating theatre.

RESULTS

There were no statistically significant differences between the study group and the control group in all of the outcome measures except for access block, which showed a 16% relative improvement (49.8-41.7%) during the study period when compared with the control period (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

At this hospital, unacceptably high levels of ED access block persist both during and outside holiday periods, despite there being mild improvement in access block during the holiday period where bed closures were balanced against the effect of other service cutbacks (e.g. closing operating theatres).