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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Transitional care facility for elderly people in hospital awaiting a long term care bed
— randomised controlled trial | | Author(s) | Maria Crotty, Craig H Whitehead, Rachel Wundke |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 331, no 7525, 12 November 2005 |
| Pages | pp 1110-1113 |
| Source | http://www.bmj.com |
| Keywords | Discharge [hospitals] ; Medical care ; Transitional phase ; Admission [care homes] ; Clinical surveys ; Australia. |
| Annotation | Older patients in hospital who are waiting for a residential care bed are often stigmatised as "bed blockers". Transitional care units where patients wait and receive low levels of treatment following discharge from hospital are often proposed as an alternative solution, but such units are controversial. The authors assessed the effectiveness of a 30-bed transitional care facility serving three hospitals in Adelaide, Australia, compared with usual care (waiting in hospital). Study participants were 320 patients (mean age 83) in acute hospital beds (212 randomised to the intervention, 108 to control). From admission, those in the intervention group stayed a median of 32.5 days in hospital. In the control group, the median length of stay was 43.5 days. Patients in the intervention group took a median of 21 days (6-27 days) longer to to be admitted to permanent care than those in the control group. In both groups, few patients went home (14 from the intervention group, 9 from the control group). There were no significant differences in death rates (28% vs 27%) or rates of transfer back to hospital (28% vs 25%). While an off-site traditional care unit can reduce length of stay in hospital without adverse effects for patients, this is at the cost of an overall increase in time taken to gain permanent long-term care. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060106201 A |
| Classmark | LD:QKJ: LK: 4MT: KW:QKH: 3G: 7YA * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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