Abstract: Length of stay (LOS) is one of the most common predictors of increasing or decreasing medical and non-medical costs relevant to hospital care; higher the LOS is, higher will be the costs to the patients, their families and to the healthcare system. Reducing LOS saves hospitalization costs as well as intangible costs. The aim of the research was to analyze the factors influencing length of stay in hospitalized diabetes mellitus patients. In a 3-month-long observational study, 136 patients were studied. Demographic data, laboratory data and other relevant information were collected from patients’ case-sheets, prescriptions and by direct interaction with patients, physicians, nurses and carers. Follow-up was conducted on a daily basis. Average length of stay (ALOS) for 136 subjects was 8.2 days. ALOS was found to be higher in females (8.41 days) than in males (7.97 days). The study also indicated an increase in LOS with increasing age. For the age-group 20-39 years, ALOS was determined as 7 days and the same for the age groups 40 - 59 years, 60 - 79 years and 80 - 99 years were 7.4 days, 8.9 days and 19.5 days, respectively. Patients with single co-morbidity had a higher ALOS (8.77 days) than that of patients with multiple co-morbidities (7.3 days). Infectious diseases (p=0.0107) and cardiovascular diseases (p=0.0371) predicted higher LOS than other co-morbidities. Logistic regression analysis also revealed significantly high odds ratio for hepatic diseases. Hyponatremic patients exhibited a significantly higher ALOS (8.5 days) than patients without hyponatremia (7.6 days). The ALOS (13.25 days) for T1DM patients was found to be higher than other groups. Newly diagnosed cases of T2DM had a shorter ALOS (7.85 days) than known cases of T2DM (8.41 days). Patients receiving only insulin had a higher ALOS of 9.2 days, while patients receiving combinations of insulin and OHA had a shorter ALOS of 6.93 days. Clinical pharmacists are not only in charge of optimizing drug therapy for the patients, but they are responsible for improving health outcomes by studying non-therapeutic aspects of hospital care as well and suggesting or implementing appropriate changes in order to reduce the costs related to therapy and to improve mental and physical status of patients. The study demonstrates the importance of clinical pharmacist’s thorough examination of institutional factors, social factors and patient’s individual factors for achieving improvement in therapy and reduction in length of stay.
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, hyperglycemia, length of stay, hospitalization.
Title: ANALYSIS OF FACTORS INFLUENCING LENGTH OF HOSPITAL STAY IN DIABETIC PATIENTS
Author: Niladri Chakraborty, Saroj Kumar Yadav, Danial Esfandiari, D Sai Harsha Vardhan, Dr. Kannan G
International Journal of Healthcare Sciences
ISSN 2348-5728 (Online)
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