Health status and health care utilization after discharge from geriatric in-hospital stay – description of a register-based study

BACKGROUND: This study is the first part of a register-based research program with the overall aim to increase the knowledge of the health status among geriatric patients and to identify risk factors for readmission in this population. The aim of this study was two-fold: 1) to evaluate the validity of the study cohorts in terms of health care utilization in relation to regional cohorts; 2) to describe the study cohorts in terms of health status and health care utilization after discharge. METHODS: The project consist of two cohorts with data from patient records of geriatric in-hospital stays, health care utilization data from Stockholm Regional Healthcare Data Warehouse 6 months after discharge, socioeconomic data from Statistics Sweden. The 2012 cohort include 6710 patients and the 2016 cohort, 8091 patients; 64% are women, mean age is 84 (SD 8). RESULTS: Mean days to first visit in primary care was 12 (23) and 10 (19) in the 2012 and 2016 cohort, respectively. Readmissions to hospital was 38% in 2012 and 39% in 2016. The validity of the study cohorts was evaluated by comparing them with regional cohorts. The study cohorts were comparable in most cases but there were some significant differences between the study cohorts and the regional cohorts, especially regarding amount and type of primary care. CONCLUSION: The study cohorts seem valid in terms of health care utilization compared to the regional cohorts regarding hospital care, but less so regarding primary care. This will be considered in the analyses and when interpreting data in future studies based on these study cohorts. Future studies will explore factors associated with health status and re-admissions in a population with multi-morbidity and disability.