Length of Stay
Reducing the Length of Stay (LoS) in hospitals is of paramount importance in modern healthcare systems. Shorter hospital stays lead to significant cost savings and reduce the potential for hospital acquired conditions and infections for patients. Consequently, outcomes are improved, costs are reduced and resource availability and utilization are improved.
Reducing LoS alleviates strain on hospital resources by freeing up beds and staff for other patients. Furthermore, it enhances the overall patient experience by minimizing disruption to their daily lives and promoting a quicker return to normalcy.
Hospitals that prioritize length of stay reductions often achieve improved patient outcomes, increased efficiency, and greater patient satisfaction, contributing to the overall success and sustainability of their services.
Many of our partner hospitals have seen significant improvements in their length of stay, coupled with other benefits after implementing Structured Interdisciplinary Bedside Rounds (SIBR® rounds).
Mechanisms of Action
SIBR rounds bring the care team together each day to discuss key changes in patient status, new pertinent information and emerging evidence.
Within 3-4 minutes every participant has heard from their colleagues, the patient and their family, if present. Everyone leaves the bedside with their key questions answered and a cohesive holistic plan for the day and plan for discharge shared amongst the team.
Team members, patients and family members know what their tasks are until the team meets again, and how they can each progress the patient to a safe and early discharge.
The incorporation of a quality-safety checklist into our bedside handover process and again in SIBR rounds ensures that common causes of hospital acquired complications are identified and mitigated early, 3 times per day at a minimum. This prevents non-response to treatment or deterioration that can delay patient recovery and discharge.
Get the detailed LoS outcomes
Length of Stay Outcomes
Emory University Hospital
Acute Medical Unit
10% (p=0.001)
0.5 days
Loma Linda Children’s Hospital
Pediatric ICU
🡇 10% (p=0.004)
0.2 days
The Christ Hospital
Aged Care for the Elderly
🡇 11% to home (p=0.001)
1.48 days
The Christ Hospital
Aged Care for the Elderly
🡇 28% to SNF (p=0.001)
2.02 days
Presbyterian St Luke’sÂ
Medical Telemetry
🡇 10%
0.4 days
Brisbane, Australia
Hem Onc/BMT
🡇 10%
 2.35 days
Liverpool Hospital, Australia
Oncology
🡇 19%
1.2 days
Liverpool Hospital, Australia
Surgical
🡇 43%
4.1 days
Prince of Wales Hospital, Australia
Aged Care Rehab
🡇 19%
4 days
Pasqua Hospital
Gen med
🡇 16%
1.6 days
BayCare Health
Gen med
🡇 16%
0.8 days
Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City
Gen med
🡇 11%
0.7 days
Berkshire Medical Center
Progressive Care Unit
🡇 11%
0.7 days
Readmission Outcomes
The Christ Hospital
Aged Care for the Elderly
🡇 30% 30-day readmissions
Presbyterian St Luke’sÂ
Medical telemetry
🡇 25% 30-day readmissions
Wake Forest Baptist Health
Gen med
🡇 30% (7-day readmissions, p=0.003)
Liverpool Hospital, Australia
Oncology
🡇 19% (30-day readmissions, p=0.003)
Interpretation of results
While there are strong outcomes across the quadruple aim, SIBR seems particularly strong at improving hospital throughput. This result is consistent with what one might expect from hardwiring a daily interdisciplinary and patient-centered care planning meeting for most inpatients.
Throughput likely improves because SIBR creates a daily moment for the Hospitalist and Care Manager to coordinate discharge planning for most of their shared patients, while also including the bedside nurse, pharmacist (usually), and patient/family in the real-time planning to share info, sanity-check the plan, and solve emerging unknowns that might delay discharge.
Unsurprisingly, SIBR appears to be most impactful for the most complex discharges. Complex discharges benefit most from starting discharge planning earlier in the patient stay, which seems to reduce discharge delays commonly associated with complex discharges.
“Two and a half months ago that [we] implemented [our] first Accountable Care Unit {with SIBR rounds}…
So far this system has had a very positive impact on patient care. On average patients on this unit are heading home two and a half days earlier.
– Hospital President and CEO