Health Care Management Models for the Evolution of Hospitalization in Acute Inpatient Psychiatry Units: Comparative Quantitative Study

BACKGROUND: Mental health disorders are a problem that affects patients, their families, and the professionals who treat them. Hospital admissions play an important role in caring for people with these diseases due to their effect on quality of life and the high associated costs. In Spain, at the Healthcare Complex of Zamora, a new disease management model is being implemented, consisting of not admitting patients with mental diseases to the hospital. Instead, they are supervised in sheltered apartments or centers for patients with these types of disorders. OBJECTIVE: The main goal of this research is to evaluate the evolution of hospital days of stay of patients with mental disorders in different hospitals in a region of Spain, to analyze the impact of the new hospital management model. METHODS: For the development of this study, a database of patients with mental disorders was used, taking into account the acute inpatient psychiatry unit of 11 hospitals in a region of Spain. SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 23.0 (IBM Corp), was used to calculate statistical values related to hospital days of stay of patients. The data included are from the periods of 2005-2011 and 2012-2015. RESULTS: After analyzing the results, regarding the days of stay in the different health care complexes for the period between 2005 and 2015, we observed that since 2012 at the Healthcare Complex of Zamora, the total number of days of stay were reduced by 64.69%. This trend is due to the implementation of a new hospital management model in this health complex. CONCLUSIONS: With the application of a new hospital management model at the Healthcare Complex of Zamora, the number of days of stay of patients with mental diseases as well as the associated hospital costs were considerably reduced.