Ontario hospitals need to increase rehabilitation and complex care capacity

A Canadian Institute for Health Information report indicates that there was a total of 853,316 alternative level of care (ALC) days in Ontario hospitals in 2007-8. Mostly, these were for patients waiting for a different sort of bed. The report indicates that 27% of those days are accounted for by patients who were waiting for a complex continuing care or rehabilitation bed.

That's a tad over 230,000 days per year.

Rehabilitation and complex continuing care beds are different sorts of hospital beds, so again this suggests the resolution of the ALC issue will need improvements in the capacity of Ontario hospitals in those areas.

A further 13% of days were accounted for by patients who died while in an ALC bed: this group was almost always either waiting for a palliative care bed, or waiting for another sort of bed, it appears.

Another 40% of Ontario ALC days were for patients waiting for a long term care bed.

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