Article

OBJECTIVE: To provide benchmarking information for a large national sample of
patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury. DESIGN:
Secondary data analysis from 893 medical rehabilitation facilities located in the
United States that contributed information to the Uniform Data System for Medical
Rehabilitation from January 2000 through December 2007. Variables analyzed
included demographic information (age, sex, marital status, race or ethnicity,
prehospital living setting, and discharge setting), hospitalization information
(length of stay, program interruptions, payer, onset date, rehabilitation
impairment group, Internation Classification of Diseases-9th revision codes for
admitting diagnosis, and co-morbidities), and functional status information (FIM
instrument [FIM] ratings at admission and discharge, FIM efficiency, FIM gain).
RESULTS: Descriptive statistics from 101,188 patients showed length of stay
decreasing from a mean of 22.7 (+/-20.5) days to 16.6 (+/-14.8) days during the
8-yr study period. FIM total admission and discharge ratings also decreased. Mean
admission ratings decreased from 58.6 (+/-24.7) to 54.8 (+/-21.2). Mean discharge
ratings decreased from 92.4 (+/-24.2) to 85.0 (+/-24.0). Accordingly, mean
functional independence measure change decreased from 33.8 (+/-20.5) to 30.2
(+/-18.4). The percentage of patients discharged to the community settings ranged
from 81.3% in 2000 to 74.1% in 2007. All results are likely influenced by various
policy changes affecting classification or documentation processes or both.
CONCLUSIONS: National rehabilitation data from persons with traumatic brain
injury in 2000-2007 indicate that patients are spending less time in an inpatient
care setting than in the previous years and are experiencing improvements in
functional independence during their stay. In addition, a majority of patients
are discharged to community settings after inpatient rehabilitation.

Langue : ANGLAIS