이상의 결과를 정리해 보면 군병원의 총재원기간은 개인의 특성으로는 계급, 임상적 특성으로는 진단명과 질병의 경중도, 병원의 특성으로는 최초이용 병원의 종류와 후송회수에 크게 영향을 받는 것으로 조사되, 다른 변수를 통제하여도 최초 이용 의료기관의 종류
가 총재원기간에 많은 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다 따라서 조작이 가능한 병원의 특성을 잘 활용하면 총재원기간을 단축할 수 있을 것으로 생각된다.
[영문]
This study defines a total length of stay as a duration from the initial admission to the last discharge with the same disease, This study attempts to identify the relationship between the types of the first admitted hospitals where the patient with the same disease had used and the total length of stay(TLOS) in
the armed forces hospitals.
Data was collected from the hospital discharge records of 27,966 soldiery who were hospitalized in the armed forces hospitals with the following five diagnoses from January 1,1992 to December 31,1993 : pulmonary tuberculosis, hemorrhoid, acute
appendicitis, herniated intervertebral disc disorders(HIVD), and the other.
The independent variables used in the analysis were three characteristics: personal characteristics such as educational level , rank, and forces; clinical characteristics such as diagnosis, and severity of illness; and hospital characteristics such as a type of the first admitted hospitals, and a number of
transfers with same disease.
The following results were obtained:
1) From the multiple regression analysis on the total length of stay, four variables were statistically significant for all diagnoses: rank, diagnosis, type of first admitted hospitals, and number of transfers with the same disease.
2) The navy patients had longer TLOS(by 14.5%) than those in the army. The air forces patients had shorter TLOS(by 6.l%) than those in the army. But, these results were different with diagnoses.
3) The first type hospitals (bed size less than 100) have shorter TLOS(by 41.4%) than those the second type hospitals (bed size between 101-300).But, the third (led size between 301-500) and fourth (bed size more than 501) type hospitals have longer TLOS (by 35.7%, 35.5%)than those in the second type hospitals; this difference was statistically significant (p < 0.001).
4) TLOS increased by 67.0% for every transfer.
When personal and clinical characteristics were control led, hospital characteristics were important to reduce the total length of stay. Since these hospital characteristics can be controlled by internal policy, hospital management should utilize them in such a way to reduce the total length of stay and to improve hospital performance. As an implication for the further study, organizational variables should also be included in the study of the total length of stay.