What makes the hospitalisation system more efficient? An application of the decomposition method to Hong Kong morbidity data

Yip, Paul S F; Lee, Carmen K M; Chow, Chun-Bong; Lo, William T L

The total number of hospitalization days is the most crucial factor in determining financial funding and planning of the public hospital system. The decomposition method described in this paper provides empirical evidence that the mean duration of stay plays a very significant role in determining the number of hospitalization days. Despite that, the frequency of visits per patient has increased from 1.98 to 2.14, and the hospital admission rate increased from 87.43 to 94.51 (possibly due to the ageing of the population). We still observed a 21% reduction in the number of hospitalized days per person, which contributes to the reduction of the mean duration of stay from 6.83 to 4.58 days. Hence, even a shorter average stay per hospital visit, which could induce 11 an increase in the number of re-visits, still leads to a reduction in the total number of hospitalization days.