For patients coming to the hospital with pneumonia, intensive care unit stays increased their time spent in the hospital by 50 percent, bringing their length of stay to 7.2 days, a report covered in an American Journal of Managed Care blog post found.
The report from the National Hospital Care Survey only included patients who were hospitalized primarily for pneumonia.
Three report insights:
1. Of the collected data, pneumonia hospitalizations made up 2.1 percent of all discharges, with 46.7 percent of hospitalizations happening in patients 65 years and older.
2. Visits to the emergency department due to pneumonia were 0.5 percent of all ED visits, with 46.1 percent of them happening in patients under 15 years old.
3. The study found the average length of stay in the hospital was 4.2 days, with a shortest length of stay of 3.1 days for patients under 15 years old and the longest length of stay of 4.6 days in patients 65 years and older.