Question

ALOS is a common tool used to measure healthcare efficiency. please discuss factors that should be considered when using this measure. You may consider factors related to samples, service delivery, disease state, etc. If you were presented with a report that compared your program's ALOS to another program's ALOS, what questions would you ask to ensure that an accurate comparison was made?

Answer 1

Average length of stay measures how long, patients stay in a hospital. This matrix can vary based on the type of facility and type of medical condition involved.it is a time interval between date of admission and date of discharge..in this period hospital resources utilization rate, efficiency and quality of health care services,it measures both bed utilization and a inpatient unit efficiency..

Length of stay reduction level is restricted by some factors quality and effectiveness consideration..common factors involve in ALOS is age,sex,marital status,place of residence,socio-economic status,admission time,day,month, patient physical condition at the time of discharge,types and severity of illnesses, complications and hospital infection..There are various factors associated with prolonged or reduced length of hospital stay..

If we comparing ALOS program with another program there is major difference in age,sex, residence, marital status,ECHS patient,socio economic status, nutritional status, education status, insurance status etc..study found that fruncating effect of Medicare reimbursement on ALOS in U.S hospital..The duration of illness associated with co-founder morbidities, referring authority, history of surgical intervention or previous hospitalization, complications of illness, patient satisfaction not associated with LOS in the previous study..study shows there is lot of LOS due to elderly and malnourished patient, illness and fail to follow the dosage schedule,anemia, malnutrition etc..

Question I would like to ask is

Is that ALOS make much difference between well developed states and low economic states??

ALOS can be reduced by Improving health insurance coverage for all non insured patient??