Administrative Days in Acute Care Facilities: A Queueing-Analytic Approach

After acute care services are no longer required, a patient in an acute care hospital often must remain there while he or she awaits the provision of extended care services by a nursing home, through social support services, or by a home health care service. This waiting period is often referred to as “administrative days” because the time is spent in the acute facility not for medical reasons, but rather for administrative reasons. In this paper we use a queueing-analytic approach to describe the process by which patients await placement. We model the situation using a state-dependent placement rate for patients backed up in the acute care facility. We compare our model results with data collected from a convenience sample of 7 hospitals in New York State. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of our models.