Evaluation of Inappropriate Admission and Hospitalization According to Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol and Estimation of Direct Financial Burden

Appropriate allocation of resources is an important issue in the delivery of services that can reduce the health system costs. The inappropriateness of healthcare services is one of the problems that increase the pressure on hospitals and patients.

In this study, the data were collected using the appropriateness evaluation protocol by a medicine specialist at Rasoul Akram Hospital. In total, 248 participants were selected through systematic sampling. To calculate the financial burden simultaneously with the evaluation of inappropriate hospitalization days, the medicine and facility costs along with the cost of bed-day were estimated. Data were analyzed by SPSS software.

The type of treatment was surgery in 56.8% of the patients and 43.2% of them were admitted to the hospital for internal medicine. The mean length of stay was 4 ± 6 days. The inappropriate admission rate was estimated at about 6% and the rate of inappropriate hospital stays was 21.5%. The most important factors influencing the inappropriateness of hospitalization were delayed medical consultations, delayed surgery, conservative practitioner, and the follow-up of clinical test results. The sum of the direct financial burden of inappropriate hospitalization for the patients was estimated at around 1060 dollars.

The findings of this study indicated that inappropriate hospitalization and admission imposed a huge financial burden on the health system and community. Hospital authorities by considering issues such as delayed medical consultations and delayed surgery can decrease the financial burden of inappropriate hospitalization to a large extent.