Is increased “stay away from bed” time associated with improved clinical rehabilitation outcomes in Japanese rehabilitation hospitals? A prospective observational study and clinical practice

BACKGROUND: A comprehensive team approach for increasing stay away from bed time (SaB-time) called CASaB was conducted at multiple rehabilitation hospitals. AIMS: The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between SaB-time and clinical rehabilitation outcomes (CROs) before introducing CASaB (observational phase), and comparing CROs before and after CASaB (CASaB phase). METHODS: This prospective observational study included patients who were admitted to nine rehabilitation hospitals, with complete data. The final analysis included 197/229 patients in the observation phase, and 229/256 patients in the CASaB phase. We first tested whether SaB-time was positively associated with CROs in an observational study, then compared CROs before and after CASaB. RESULTS: In the observation phase, longer SaB-time was significantly associated with greater rehabilitation efficiency (REy) after adjusting for confounders (standardized β = 0.20, p = 0.007). In a comparison of CROs before and after CASaB, the length of hospital stay during the CASaB phase was significantly shorter than during the observational phase (61.5, 57.6–65.4 days vs 75.6, 71.4–79.9 days, p < 0.001), and the REy after CASaB was significantly greater than that before the CASaB (0.38, 0.33–0.42/day vs 0.28, 0.25–0.33/day, p = 0.006). DISCUSSION: The current results suggest that increasing SaB-time may help the recovery of functional abilities, particularly for patients in rehabilitation hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: The CASaB provides a method for improving the recovery efficiency of patients in rehabilitation hospitals.