J. Liang et al., PROBABILITIES AND LIFETIME DURATIONS OF SHORT-STAY HOSPITAL AND NURSING-HOME USE IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1985, Medical care, 34(10), 1996, pp. 1018-1036
OBJECTIVES. The authors present a four-state increment-decrement life
table model from which estimates of the risk and duration of nursing h
ome and short-term hospital stays in the United States are derived. ME
THODS. Survival analysis was used to generate various transition proba
bilities while controlling for population heterogeneity. In addition,
a newly developed algorithm was applied to construct the multistate li
fe table specifically for health-care use. RESULTS. The results reveal
that in 1985, a US civilian is expected to spend 72.35 years in the c
ommunity, 59.5 days in short-stay hospitals, and 2.28 years in nursing
homes throughout his or her lifetime. CONCLUSIONS. The single-year ri
sk of nursing home and short-stay hospital use is shown to be an incre
asing function of age, especially for the older adults.