Determinants of hospital length of stay for people with serious mental illness in England and implications for payment systems: a regression analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Serious mental illness (SMI), which encompasses a set of chronic conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychoses, accounts for 3.4 m (7 %) total bed days in the English NHS. The introduction of prospective payment to reimburse hospitals makes an understanding of the key drivers of length of stay (LOS) imperative. Existing evidence, based on mainly small scale and cross-sectional studies, is mixed. Our study is the first to use large-scale national routine data to track English hospitals' LOS for patients with a main diagnosis of SMI over time to examine the patient and local area factors influencing LOS and quantify the provider level effects to draw out the implications for payment systems.

Methods

We analysed variation in LOS for all SMI a

SUBMITTER: Jacobs R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4590310 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature