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Resource use by younger versus older patients

G N Fox1

  • 1Pennsylvania State University.

Family Practice Research Journal
|September 1, 1993
PubMed
Summary

Elderly patients consume more healthcare resources than younger patients, even within a single specialty like family practice. This includes longer hospital stays and more consultant use.

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Area of Science:

  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Health Services Research
  • Family Medicine

Background:

  • The elderly population utilizes a disproportionately high amount of healthcare resources compared to younger individuals.
  • It remains unclear if this disparity persists when healthcare is managed by a single medical specialty.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether the elderly consume greater healthcare resources than younger patients when cared for by family practice physicians.
  • To compare resource utilization across different age groups within a family practice setting.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective analysis of a family practice clinical database at a suburban teaching hospital.
  • Inclusion of all acute-care patients managed by a family practice residency service over one year.
  • Outcome measures included site of care, hospital length of stay, and consultant use.

Main Results:

  • Elderly patients were more likely to be hospitalized than managed in a short-stay unit (p = 0.001).
  • The elderly experienced longer hospital stays (mean 8.5 days for ages 80+ vs. 5.1 days for <20 years; p = 0.004).
  • Older patients (60+) had a higher mean number of consultants (1.16) compared to younger patients (0.80; p = 0.001).

Conclusions:

  • The elderly exhibit greater relative healthcare resource consumption, even when managed by family practice physicians.
  • Age may be a surrogate for unexamined factors like insurance status.
  • Findings are limited by the single-institution, single-group study design.

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