The Use of a Patient Discharge Lounge and the Impact on 30-Day Hospital Readmission

To investigate if there is a relationship between the use of a patient discharge hospitality center (DHC) and hospital readmissions.

Hospital discharge lounges or DHCs have been developed to improve patient throughput. No studies have been conducted to determine if a discharge location influences hospital readmission.

Data were extracted for adults discharged to home or self-care. Patients were stratified by discharge/last department and admitting/discharge service lines. Readmission rates between groups in the stratified data were compared. DHC and control patients were matched on gender, marital status, age at admission, type, discharging/last department before the DHC, discharging service line, and readmission risk category.

There was no significant difference in the readmission rate of the control group (9.74%) compared with the DHC group (9.93%), χ1 (n = 3204) = 0.031, P = .86.

The results of this analysis do not indicate that being discharged from a DHC has an impact on readmission rates.