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Who is discharged to intermediate care facilities? An Italian study in the population of Udine

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to assess complexity of patients discharged from hospital to intermediate care facility in an Italian setting. Multiple anonymous health-related databases were linked at the individual patient level through a stochastic key to study patients discharged from the University Hospital of Udine, Italy, from 2010 to 2019. Patient complexity was measured through diagnosis related group (DRG) relative weight of each hospitalization, number of chronic conditions and annual use of health resources. 12,674 intermediate care facility admissions were recorded in the study period. Mean DRG weight was 1.54±1.05 with variations depending on the discharging hospital ward. Patients discharged to intermediate facilities had higher DRG weight, had more comorbidities and consumed more health resources than the others, particularly in case of patients discharged from surgical wards. Patients discharged to intermediate care facilities are particularly complex, have high use of health resources, and may be difficult to manage.