Length of Stay
You can view the Length of Stay section in Clinical Analytics as a pie chart showing the distribution of the length of stay across different parts of the hospital. Its accompanying table shows each code group’s length of stay compared with a customizable benchmark, helping hospitals discern where patients are spending more or less time than expected.
See Revenue Code categories for more information about how revenue codes are grouped in this section.
If you are using a Medicare benchmark, your data is grouped into far fewer groups than if you use an all payer benchmark. This is because Medicare benchmarks are dependent on the data available in the MedPAR LDS data feed. Medicare provides cost data at the charge category level, so there are fewer stratifications available. See Medicare cost formulas for a list of available cost categories available from these data.
Parameters
When you load the Length of Stay section, a line of dropdowns appear at the top, a table on the left, and a pie chart on the right. Use the dropdowns to choose which data you want to see.
When you change any of the section parameter settings, a red box appears below the menu. Click the Rerun button to run the data search again, recalculating the results according to the options you chose.
The following table lists your parameter options for this section.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Patients |
Choose between All Patients and Patients Receiving. The difference is All Patients pulls in anyone, regardless of where they spent time, and Patients Receiving includes only patients that spent time in each category. For example, if someone spent time in the ICU, but not the Intermediate ICU, they would be included in the ICU measure but not the Intermediate ICU measure. |
| Profile | Choose the internal profile you want to pull data from. |
| Period |
Use the dropdowns to select the beginning and end dates for your time period of interest. |
| Benchmark Profile | Choose the benchmark group you want to compare your profile to; you can select an internal profile to compare different time periods or select a peer group profile to compare externally. |
| Benchmark Period | Choose the period for the benchmark profile; if you select a peer group profile, the dates default to the most recent year of available benchmark data. |
Understand the Data Table
For more details about the calculations in this section, see Revenue Code measures. The following table briefly describes each of the columns in the Length of Stay table.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Description | This column lists the revenue code groups; the colored squares by the descriptions match the colors on the pie chart. |
| Average Length of Stay | Total days divided by the total number of encounters for the selected period and profile. Click the blue numbers in this column to see a DRG-level analysis of the selected code group in Details. |
| Total Length of Stay | Total number of days for that revenue code group for the selected period and profile |
| Opportunity | For each encounter, Clinical Analytics subtracts: Days for the code group - Benchmark Days for the code group. Clinical Analytics then sums up this difference over all encounters for total Opportunity. If your profile had higher length of stay than the benchmark, the box is red. If your profile had lower charges or costs than the benchmark, the box is green. If the two amounts are very close, the box has no color. See Opportunity for more information. |
Use the pie chart
The pie chart simplifies the data so analysts can see the information at a glance. Each chart shows a breakdown of the average number of days as percentages of the whole.
When you hover over a slice, a text box displays a listing of the full description, the average length of stay, and its percentage. Click a slice to separate it from the others.
Default Details template
You can also choose the default Details Section template for the system to apply when you drill into the data. When a user clicks on a hyperlinked value in the table, Clinical Analytics redirects to a Details Section; this is where you can customize the measures, group-bys and other options for the default Details Section. Simply click the hyperlinked blue text in the Options box and select an available Details template.
NOTE: The Details template must already be created in a Details Section and saved before you select it here.
See Section-specific templates for more information about customizing these template options.
