Influencing Factors on Patients’ Length of Stay in an Emergency Department of a Training Hospital

Patients’ length of stay in emergency departments is one of the key criterion which has been focused by hospital managers recently. This study aimed to assess the influencing factors on patients’ length of stay in an emergency department of a training hospital affiliated by Alborz Medical University of Medical Sciences.

This was a descriptive-analytical study with a cross-sectional design in 2017. Study population consisted of all inpatients in a six month time period from the beginning of the study year. Through the use of Cochrane sample size calculation formula 555 numbers of samples were selected which their related data were obtained from the review of patients’ medical records. To test study hypotheses data were entered to a SPSS version 20 and analyzed through descriptive statistical analysis method, Pearson correlation test, t-test, and ANOVA.

Mean of patients’ length of stay was 11.31 hours. Evidence showed that this mean time was correlated with some of the factors including internal or external medical counseling, the necessity to have a medical laboratory test, a medical imaging test or the time interval between triage and the first physician’s visit.

Modifying hospital processes and performance procedures in an emergency department with an aim to improve service quality and effective interactions among different hospital units can play a helpful role in solving existing problems.