Crooks Colin J, West Joe, Gazis Tasso, Morling Joanne R, Simmonds Mark, Juurlink Irene, Briggs Steve, Cruickshank Simon, Hammond-Pears Susan, Shaw Dominick, Card Timothy R, Fogarty Andrew
Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
J Res Nurs. 2025 Aug 29:17449871241310384. doi: 10.1177/17449871241310384.
Understanding the reasons for delays in leaving hospital once an in-patient is considered ready for discharge is important to inform the development of interventions to improve patient flow through resource-stressed healthcare systems.
To identify risk factors for delayed discharge from hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study population was all patients admitted with COVID-19 infection from February 2020 to September 2021 to a large UK teaching hospital.
Data were available from 7929 admission events with a median delay of 0.20 days from being considered medically safe for discharge and the discharge date. Age older than 60 years (+2.23 days), White ethnicity (+1.58 days compared to SE Asian), living in an area of increased affluence (+0.13 days per decile decrease in deprivation) and having two or more comorbidities (+1.82 days; compared to no comorbidities) were associated with delayed discharge.There was a total potential saving of over 22,000 bed-days if all patients had been discharged when they were considered medically safe.
Early identification of patients at an increased risk of a delayed discharge may allow development of appropriate anticipatory interventions, and inform policymakers to help identify and minimise bottlenecks at the institutional level.
了解住院患者被认为可以出院后仍延迟出院的原因，对于制定干预措施以改善资源紧张的医疗系统中的患者流程非常重要。
确定新冠疫情期间医院延迟出院的风险因素。
研究人群为2020年2月至2021年9月入住英国一家大型教学医院的所有新冠感染患者。
有7929次入院事件的数据，从被认为医疗上适合出院到出院日期的中位延迟为0.20天。60岁以上（增加2.23天）、白人种族（与东南亚人相比增加1.58天）、生活在富裕程度较高的地区（贫困程度每降低十分位数增加0.13天）以及有两种或更多合并症（增加1.82天；与无合并症相比）与延迟出院相关。如果所有患者在被认为医疗上安全时就出院，总共可节省超过22000个床位日。
早期识别延迟出院风险增加的患者，可能有助于制定适当的预期干预措施，并为政策制定者提供信息，以帮助识别和最小化机构层面的瓶颈。
