What types of hospital patients wait for alternative placement? Findings from an exploratory case study and policy...

Concern about delayed hospital discharges has accentuated since the advent of the Prospective Payment System (PPS) and resultant hospital underreimbursement for the care of those patients awaiting alternative placement. This article reports on ongoing research on the delayed discharge problem. Analyses of the determinants of the likelihood of delay and the number of days of delay by patients awaiting alternative placement in 76 North Carolina acute care general hospitals (about two thirds of all such hospitals) during May 1991 indicate that, although demographic attributes such as age, race, and sex are important correlates of delay, which averaged nearly 11 days, a patient's requirement for heavy care is the most significant policy-relevant variable in explaining the number of delay days.