Aging & Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine the factors that increase the odds of long-stay delayed discharge in alternate level of care (ALC) patients using data collected from the Ontario Wait Time Information System (WTIS) database. Retrospective cohort study utilizing data from Niagara Health’s WTIS database. WTIS includes individuals admitted to any of the Niagara Health sites that have been designated as ALC. The sample consisted of 16,429 ALC senior patients who received care in Niagara Health hospitals and were recorded in the WTIS database. ALC designation of 30 or more days was used as the threshold for a long-stay delayed discharge. This study used binary logistic regression modeling to analyze sex, age, admission source, and discharge destination as well needs/barriers requirements to assess the likelihood of a long-stay delayed discharge among acute care (AC) and post-acute care (PAC) patients given the presence of each variable. Overall, 10.2% of the sample were considered long-stay ALC patients. Both AC and PAC long-stay ALC patients were more likely to be male [OR=1.23, (1.06-1.43); OR=1.28, (1.03-1.60)] and have a discharge destination of a long-term care bed [OR=28.68, (22.83-36.04); OR=6.22, (4.75-8.15)]. AC patients had bariatric [OR=7.16, (3.45-14.83)], behavioral [OR=1.89, (1.22-2.91)], infection (isolation) [OR=2.31, (1.63-3.28)], and feeding [OR=6.38, (1.82-22.30)] barriers hindering discharge. PAC patients had no significant barriers hindering patient discharge. Understanding the importance of specialized patient requirements in addition to clinical factors can help hospitals become more prepared in preventing delayed discharges.