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Average post-operative length of stay indicator

Average (mean) post-operative length of stay in days

Rolling year to date (January 2011 – December 2011)	9
Rolling 3 years (January 2009 – December 2011)	10

Lower number indicates better performance.

Average (median) post-operative length of stay in days

Rolling year to date (January 2011 – December 2011)	8
Rolling 3 years (January 2009 – December 2011)	7

Lower number indicates better performance.

How is the Trust doing?

Patients' average (mean) post-operative length of stay remains stable. The average (median) post-operative length of stay is also shown below. 93.5% of patients are discharged home following their surgery (2009-10).

Why is this indicator important?

Length of stay in hospital can indicate the speed of recovery and how well the operation was carried out. Many factors can affect a patient's length of stay, including their age and risk profile, complications including even minor ones, whether they require other facilities such as physiotherapy, home circumstances and whether they need to be transferred to another hospital.

The vast majority of the patients treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital are discharged home following their surgery rather than transferred to another hospital for example.

How do we measure this indicator?

This is based on the average number of days between the day of operation and discharge dates for all first-time, isolated CABG admissions during the period.

Averages have been calculated in two ways:

• Mean – the total number of days each patient stayed has been added together and divided by the number of patients (the sample size). The mean can be skewed for example by patients who stay an unusually long time
• Median – the total number of days each patient stayed has been ranked in order and then the middle value (number of days) has been selected