787 - Variability in length of hospital stay of premature infants: A call for care standardization- The US national database

Preterm births occur in 10% of all deliveries in the USA. The primary cause for increased cost of care is prolonged hospitalization. The association of length of hospital stay (LOS) with neonatal demographic and hospital factors has not been studied.

 
 

Objective: To assess the association of neonatal demographic, financial, and hospital factors with LOS in surviving preterm infants born at 23-36 weeks of gestational age (GA).
 

Design/Methods: We used de-identified patient data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for 2016-2020. All infants with a documented GA of 23 - to 36 weeks were included in the study, ANOVA test was used to measure the difference between the mean.
 

Results: We identified 18,905,605 infants (9,503,450 male and 9,036,791 female) born during the study period.  A total of 365,365 were excluded due to transfer to another center to prevent duplication of records.  Among the 18,540,240 included infants, 1,812,329 infants were preterm < 36 weeks and alive. Within each GA, the LOS significantly differed according to hospital bed size, US region, and type of hospital ownership (government or private) (Table 1). 

Conclusion(s):

The LOS of surviving preterm infants varies significantly according to where they were born.  Efforts for care standardization are recommended to close the gap of cost between hospitals across the nation.