Comparison of Treatment Outcomes of Acute Care Hospitals in Okitama Secondary Medical Care Zone of Yamagata Prefecture

This paper compares the treatment outcomes of the three major acute care hospitals in Okitama secondary medical care zone of Yamagata prefecture. At present, each prefecture is adjusting the supply of hospital beds so that the supply plans meet the estimated demand of each region in 2025, basically reflecting changes in demography. At the national level, currently there are too many acute care beds and too few convalescence (recovery) care beds compared to the estimates. Such qualitative and quantitative shift in each region is one of the most challenging issues facing regional hospitals. To evaluate the current situation of the regional acute care, this paper compares among the three hospitals mortality rates, length of hospital stays, Barthel Index (BI) of activities of daily living (ADL) at discharge, and changes of BI per day of hospitalization. Specifically, statistical differences in hospital acute care in heart failure, myocardial infarction, stroke, pneumonia, and femoral fracture are discussed. Though there was no statistical difference in mortality rate across the three hospitalsin the region, we observed several differences in length of hospital stay and ADL at discharge. The results suggest the difficulty in consistently achieving the efficient length of Yonehospital stays on one hand and ensuring the effective functional recovery of patients on the other hand. Furthermore, we point out some inadequate reports of personal data when comparing treatment outcomes, which lead to some biased and unclear measurements for regional hospital performances.