An observational, retrospective study of the length of stay, and its influencing factors, among elderly patients at the Emergency Department

Evaluation of adult stroke presentations at an Emergency Department in Queensland Australia

BACKGROUND

Stroke is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity which places high demands on emergency departments (EDs). Currently there is limited data on stroke presentations to Australian EDs and the time performance management of these presentations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate stroke presentations at an ED in Queensland, Australia in terms of demographics and time performance measures over a five year period.

METHODS

Retrospective analysis of ED presentations by patients ≥18 years with a final diagnosis of stroke between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2015.

RESULTS

Over the five years there was a 51.4% increase in presentations diagnosed with stroke. The majority of these patients arrived by ambulance (71.0%) and were admitted (94.9%) with death in ED for 1.4% of presentations. From 2010 to 2015 for both haemorrhagic and ischaemic stroke there was a significant decrease in median LOS in ED (435 to 215 min, p < 0.05 and 451 to 238 min, p < 0.001 respectively) and in the proportion of patients in ED greater than four hours (82.4% to 44%, p < 0.05 and 92.4% to 45.8%,p < 0.0001 respectively).

CONCLUSION

Despite increased presentations of stroke, the ED improved in multiple time performance measures. Improving time-based targets in ED is particularly important for stroke presentations given the time critical nature of stroke management.

Patient length of stay and mortality prediction: A survey

Over the past few years, there has been increased interest in data mining and machine learning methods to improve hospital performance, in particular hospitals want to improve their intensive care unit statistics by reducing the number of patients dying inside the intensive care unit. Research has focused on prediction of measurable outcomes, including risk of complications, mortality and length of hospital stay. The length of stay is an important metric both for healthcare providers and patients, influenced by numerous factors. In particular, the length of stay in critical care is of great significance, both to patient experience and the cost of care, and is influenced by factors specific to the highly complex environment of the intensive care unit. The length of stay is often used as a surrogate for other outcomes, where those outcomes cannot be measured; for example as a surrogate for hospital or intensive care unit mortality. The length of stay is also a parameter, which has been used to identify the severity of illnesses and healthcare resource utilisation. This paper examines a range of length of stay and mortality prediction applications in acute medicine and the critical care unit. It also focuses on the methods of analysing length of stay and mortality prediction. Moreover, the paper provides a classification and evaluation for the analytical methods of the length of stay and mortality prediction associated with a grouping of relevant research papers published in the years 1984 to 2016 related to the domain of survival analysis. In addition, the paper highlights some of the gaps and challenges of the domain.