Term: Hospital Days for Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Stays

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Glossary Definition

Last Updated: 2020-06-18

Definition:

The number of hospital days coded as being for ALC (as opposed to being for acute care) per 1,000 residents. Most patients with ALC days were admitted to hospital for acute reasons (e.g., stroke), but then became designated as ALC later in their stay. The majority of ALC days in hospital are used by patients who are either being assessed for potential placement in nursing homes, or have been assessed and are awaiting placement, but there are many other ALC reasons. Residents could have had ALC days in more than one hospitalization in a year, so the ALC days used in all hospitalizations were summed. Rates are age- and sex-adjusted to the Manitoba population.

Only hospitalizations of Manitoba residents in Manitoba were included; Personal Care Homes, nursing stations, and long-term care facilities were excluded (Deer Lodge Centre, Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre, Rehabilitation Centre for Children, and Riverview Health Centre). Newborn hospitalizations were excluded. The denominator includes all Manitoba residents.

Long lengths of stay (acute and ALC) in people under 50 years of age were over-inflating the age- and sex-adjusted rates in smaller districts. To improve rates the extreme values (outliers) were truncated to the value of 95th percentile.

For more information, see section 7.8 Hospital Days for Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Stays in Fransoo et al. (2019).

Related terms 

• Acute Care
• Alternate Level of Care (ALC)
• Hospital Days for Acute Care

References 

• Fransoo R, Mahar A, The Need to Know Team, Anderson A, Prior H, Koseva I, McCulloch S, Jarmasz J, Burchill S. The 2019 RHA Indicators Atlas. Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, 2019. [Report] [Summary] [Updates and Errata] [Additional Materials] (View)