Abstract
Introduction
Lumbar spine fusion surgery is a common surgical procedure used to treat a variety of lumbar spine conditions. A great number of patients fail to go home after surgery and require transfer to a rehabilitation center. Many Patients requiring transfer to rehabilitation centers often have an extended hospital length of stay due to lack of beds at rehabilitation centers. Each extra day spent at the hospital costs the health system approximately $1000 USD. The aim of this study was to identify predictive factors for discharging patients to an inpatient rehabilitation center after undergoing lumbar spine fusion surgery.
Methods
We retrospectively identified a total of 15,092 patients undergoing lumbar spine fusion from 2011 to 2013 using the ACS-NSQIP database. Patients were dichotomized based on discharge destination to patients who were discharged home (N = 12,339) and others who were discharged to a rehabilitation center (N = 2753). Outcomes included patient demographics, comorbidities, and clinical characteristics. A multivariate logistic regression was used to identify whether outcomes studied were predictive factors for discharging patients to a rehabilitation center after lumbar fusion surgery.
Results
Majority of patients were discharged home after lumbar fusion surgery (81.76%) with only some discharged to a rehabilitation center (18.24%). Multivariate analysis identified age ≥40, female gender, comorbidities (diabetes, COPD, CHF, and obesity), minor and major complications, hospital length of stay (LOS), operative time ≥ 259 minutes, multilevel surgery, and return to the operation room as significant predictive factors of discharging patients to a rehabilitation center after lumbar fusion surgery.
Conclusion
The identified predictive factors can help the health system in developing an algorithm for early recognition of patients requiring postoperative admission to a rehabilitation center and possibly decreasing their hospital LOS. This can significantly decrease the hospital costs for such patients.