Transportation Times at an Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility

Research Objectives: To investigate the admission times of IRF patients from the acute care hospital and whether those patients experienced poor outcomes or readmission.

Design: A retrospective review over 3 years

Setting: Acute care hospital & IRF

Participants: 1882 inpatients

Interventions: Arrival time at the inpatient rehabilitation hospital and discharge from the acute care hospital. In addition, determining what percentage of the patients were readmitted, had an acute transfer, and/or an adverse event.

Main Outcome Measures: Admission & discharge times, readmission rates, baseline characteristics, adverse events, acute transfers

Results: We found that 29% of the patients were admitted after 5PM. It was also found that several of the patients arrived before 5PM however they waited up to 15 hours before being admitted to the IRF due to transportation. Of the 1,882 patients, 8% had a wait time of over 2 hours with several admitted after 5PM.

Conclusions: Delaying the admission of the patient from the acute care hospital disrupts the continuity of care which in turn can cause poor patient experiences, outcomes, and increased readmission rates.

Author(s) Disclosures: David T. Burke
Regina Bell