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Hospitals reduce lengths of stay with LTACH

Case Management Weekly, March 3, 2004

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Hospitals reduce lengths of stay with LTACH New Jersey hospitals constantly struggle with length of stay. Hospitals today are admitting sicker people who often require an extended period of care. Too often, these patients tend to linger in the intensive care unit, although many are stable enough to be moved elsewhere. Now, there is an alternative for such patients in New Jersey. It's called LTACH (pronounced L-TACK), which stands for long term acute care hospital. The typical patient in an LTACH stays for 25 days or longer. They include patients who require ventilator assistance, people with neurological disorders, and individuals with multi-system diseases that call for extended medical and rehabilitative care. Experts say that these specialty hospitals could prove to be a real financial boost to struggling acute-care hospitals in New Jersey, in addition to helping them better manage their length of stay. The real reason for allowing LTACHs to start operating in New Jersey, however, is that they help fill a critical gap in the system, allowing patients to receive intensive-case management and eventually transfer out of the acute care setting. Source: adapted from www.nj.com.

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