[Decrease in hospitalizations due to polyvalent medical day hospital].

INTRODUCTION: The day hospital is an alternative to hospitalization. This alternative improves accessibility and comfort of the patients, and avoids hospitalizations. Nevertheless, the efficacy of the polyvalent medical day hospital in avoiding hospitalizations has not been evaluated.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze hospital stays avoided by the polyvalent medical day hospital of a university hospital of the Andalusian Health Service.

METHODS: An observational prospective study of the patients studied and/or treated in the polyvalent medical day hospital of the Hospital Universitario Puerto Real over a one year period.

RESULTS: A total of 9640 patients were attended to, with 1413 procedures and 4921 i.v. treatments. There were 3182 visits to the priority consultation of the polyvalent medical day hospital. The most frequent consultation complaints were constitutional symptoms (15.9%) and anemia (14.5%). After the first visit, 21.5% of the patients were discharged and fewer than 3% were hospitalized. Hospitalization was avoided in 16.8% of the patients, there being a 6.0% decrease in the need for hospital beds (5.0% reduction in the internal medicine unit). Inadequate hospitalizations and 30-day readmissions decreased 93.3% and 4.2%, respectively. The most frequent diagnosis was neoplasm (26.0%), and most of the beds freed up were generated by patients diagnosed of neoplasm (26.7%).

CONCLUSION: With this type of polyvalent medical day hospital, we have observed improved efficiency of health care, freeing up hospital beds by reducing hospitalizations, inadequate hospitalizations and re-admissions in the medical units involved.