Expansion of discharge planning system in Japan: Comparison of results of a nationwide survey between 2001 and 2010

Table 1 Characteristics of target hospitals

	Year 2001		Year 2010		p-value
	Number	Percent	Number	Percent
Total	1357	100.0	913	100.0
Establishing bodies
Public sector	722	53.2	373	40.9	<0.001^a,c
Municipality	400	29.5	234	25.6
Public association	178	13.1	83	9.1
National government	144	10.6	56	6.1
Private sector	635	46.8	534	58.5
Non-profit medical corporation	414	30.5	288	31.5
Other	221	16.3	246	26.9
Type of hospital
Having beds for long-term care	223	16.4	201	22.0	<0.001^a
Community care support hospital	16	1.2	313	34.3	<0.001^a
Special function hospital	49	3.6	57	6.2	0.004^a
Affiliated institution or agency					<0.001^a,d
Having institution or agency	572	42.2	482	52.8
Home care agency	507	37.4	356	39.0
Institution for elderly	239	17.6	197	21.6
No affiliated institution or agency	743	54.8	431	47.2
Missing data	42	3.1	0	0.0
Number of hospital beds
100-199	507	37.4	333	36.5
200-399	512	37.7	338	37.0
400 or more	326	24.0	242	26.5
Missing data	12	0.9	0	0.0
mean (SD)	312.2 (203.3)		321.5 (200.6)		ns^b
Average length of hospital stay
Less than 20 days	462	34.0	724	79.3
20-30 days	654	48.2	116	12.7
30 days or more	203	15.0	46	5.0
Missing data	38	2.8	27	3.0
mean (SD)	24.1 (10.3)		17.8 (8.9)		<0.001^b
Number of patients per nurse in each hospital^e
7:1	0	0.0	438	48.0	<0.001^b
10:1	527	38.8	395	43.3
13:1	561	41.3	35	3.8
15:1 or more	254	18.7	42	4.6
Missing data	15	1.1	3	0.3

ns: not significant.
^a Chi-squared test. ^b Mann-Whitney U test.
^c P-value for public sector (total) vs. private sector (total).
^d P-value for having institution or agency (total) vs. no affiliated institution or agency.
^e Items for year 2001 correspond to values for new standard beginning 2006.

ISSN: 1472-6963