[Reduction in length of stay in Federal German acute hospitals between 1980 and 1989 in connection with hospital size].

Abstract

This investigation was conducted on the basis of data collected by the German opinion poll company Infratest (whose health research division created a DTI = diagnosis and therapy index) to find out whether the reduced length of stay of patients in Federal german hospitals for acute disease that took place during the past decade, showed any kind of distribution pattern in respect of hospital size. First of all, the average age distribution and diagnostic patterns of the patients in the individual size ranges of the hospitals for acute diseases were determined. Secondly, the investigation aimed at determining how the development of multimorbidity was distributed among the individual size ranges of hospitals. The reduced length of hospital stay between 1980 and 1989 took an almost uniform course in all hospital size groups. The largest hospitals (over 1,000 beds) have the lowest average duration of stay over the investigated period, whereas the small hospitals with 100-200 beds have the highest. The only mavericks were the smallest hospitals with less than 100 patients, where the length of stay had been highest in 1980, the reduction being subsequently the strongest despite the fact that the patient structure had become less favourable. Thus, the very smallest hospitals had overall a less-than-average length of stay in 1989.