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

Although the above admission figures show growth, the average duration of stay decreased by 32.9% from 6.83 to 4.58 days per episode from 2000 to 2010 ( Figure 4 ). In particular, the reduction was reflected more in males (35.4%, 7.38 days to 4.77 days) than in females (30.3%, 6 .33 days to 4.41 days). However, we note that the number of hospital beds in Hospital Authority [9] Moreover, the total hospitalized days decreased by 17.1% (Table 1) . Table 1 and Table 2 give the relative contribution of the differences in mean length of stay, The decomposition is summarized in Table 2 . Applying equation (iv), the relative contributions of each factor are calculated as follows: