[Hospital discharge planning and length of hospital stay in elderly patients admitted through the emergency department].

A prospective study was organized in two teaching hospitals in Paris, including 426 elderly patients aged 75 and more, who had been hospitalized through the medical emergency department. The goal of the study was to assess the influence of difficulties of orientation at discharge on the length of stay, independently of other risk factors. The mean length of stay was 18.3 +/- 15.4 days. Orientation at discharge toward a social or a nursing care institution was associated with a 12 days longer mean length of stay than a home discharge. A longer length of stay was also associated with: a strictly social problem at admission, the diagnoses of dementia, confusion, social problem, fall or general health impairment, a short or long-term fatal prognosis, a poor mental status, refusal of home discharge as expressed by the referent person. Multivariate analysis showed that discharge toward a social or a nursing care institution was the first explanatory factor, explaining 12% of variance. These results suggest that the hospital discharge management has a major influence on the elderly length of hospital stay. Therefore, an interdisciplinary care management, including social and geriatric evaluation as soon as the patient is admitted at the emergency department, should be evaluated, in order to avoid problems of orientation that may occur at discharge.