Reduction of psychiatric inpatient stay for older adults by intensive case management

An intensive case management program was offered for a 5-month period to all older persons admitted to a county inpatient unit. A quasiexperimental design was used for program evaluation with comparison to a preintervention baseline period and to younger adults on the inpatient unit during both baseline and intervention periods. Length of stay was reduced from 27 days during baseline to 12 days during intervention. For the younger patient group, length of stay changed from 11 to 12 days. Contrary to expectation, older patients were the young-old, mostly first admissions, and with mostly functional rather than organic diagnoses. This reduction in length of stay would save about $6,750 per geriatric admission.