Effect of conditions reported during hospitalisation and aged care characteristics on potentially avoidable bed-days
Multiplying the average increase in length of stay with the number of people who experienced each factor provides an estimate of the number of hospital bed-days that could potentially be avoided if nobody had experienced that factor, or if that factor was not associated with any increase in length of stay. This information is intended to be used to determine where efforts to reduce unnecessary bed-days would be best employed.
Figure 15 shows that for people living with dementia, the potentially preventable complications associated with the greatest number of additional bed-days were:
- urinary tract infections (over 23,000 bed-days for community-dwellers and nearly 21,000 bed-days for people who transitioned to residential aged care)
- delirium (nearly 22,000 bed-days for community-dwellers and nearly 9,000 bed-days for people who transitioned to residential aged care)
For people living with dementia who transitioned to residential aged care:
- people who entered residential aged care as a permanent resident collectively spent over 60,000 additional days in hospital compared with people who transitioned to aged care as a respite user
- people who were reported to be eligible and awaiting entry to residential aged during their hospitalisation collectively spent over 53,000 additional days in hospital compared with people who were not reported to be eligible and awaiting entry to residential aged care during their hospitalisation
For existing aged care residents living with dementia:
- people who needed or wanted to move to a new aged care facility collectively spent over 16,000 additional days in hospital compared with people who returned to their previous aged care facility
The number of potentially avoidable bed-days for people living with dementia and people without dementia is available in Table S1.25.
