Lagtime in psychosomatic medicine consultations for cognitive-disorder patients: association with length of stay.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Utilization studies in inpatient psychosomatic medicine have focused on patterns of consultation requests, timing of consultation requests relative to date of hospital admission, and the association between time to initial psychiatric consultation and length of stay. OBJECTIVE: The authors studied the association of time to initial psychosomatic medicine consultation and length of stay for inpatients with cognitive disorders. METHOD: The authors reviewed 157 charts, analyzing effects of age, gender, days from admission until consultation (REFLAG), and length of stay (LOS). Two values were computed referral lag divided by LOS (REFLAG/LOS) and log(REFLAG)/log(LOS). RESULTS: Mean REFLAG was 8.13; mean LOS was 18.6 days; mean REFLAG/LOS was 0.466; and mean log(REFLAG)/log (LOS) was 0.596. REFLAG and log (REFLAG)/log(LOS) correlated significantly with LOS. CONCLUSION: REFLAG is significantly associated with increased LOS. Referring services may need to consider earlier consultation requests.