Patient versus Provider Characteristics Impacting Hospital Lengths of Stay Following Total Knee or Hip Arthroplasty
Joseph F. Styron, PhD,* Siran Koroukian, PhD, Alison Klika, MS, and Wael K. Barsoum, MDHip Knee
Introduction
This study aims to identify whether patient-level or provider-level characteristics are most influential on a patient’s length of stay in the acute care hospital.
Materials and Methods
A dataset containing a nationally representative sample of inpatient discharge abstracts was used. Multi-level linear regression models were used to evaluate the associations between patient- and provider-level characteristics on patients’ lengths of stay.
Results
The target population included 322,894 discharges with a primary procedure code for primary total knee arthroplasty and 193,553 discharges for total hip arthroplasty. The variables associated with the greatest increases in length of stay were a higher co-morbidity level among patient level attributes (+17.4%) and low surgeon volume among provider-level characteristics (+18.8%).
Discussion
Provider-level characteristics, particularly provider volume, had a greater impact on length of stay.
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