Relationship between acute care hospital-based factors and discharge destination for rehabilitation following a hip fracture

Hospitals may transfer seniors with a hip fracture to various rehabilitation settings. Knowing the relationship between hospital teaching status and post-acute rehabilitation setting may help evaluations of the transfer from acute care. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between hospital teaching status and rehabilitation destination following acute care in seniors with a hip fracture. Hospital separations were linked with home care records to identify hip fractures and hospital-based or home care rehabilitation (n = 806). Two logistic regression models determined the likelihood of transfer to any rehabilitation destination and to hospital-based versus home care rehabilitation. Teaching hospitals were no more likely than non-teaching hospitals to discharge patients to any rehabilitation (OR 1.20, 95% Cl 0.88,1.65). However, among those referred to rehabilitation, the odds of discharge to hospital-based versus home care rehabilitation were almost four times greater for patients in teaching hospitals (OR 3.76, 95% Cl 2.23, 6.37). The results are consistent with the availability of post-acute rehabilitation in the planning area. Future study of post-acute rehabilitation outcomes should consider hospital teaching status as an indicator of how hospital-based,factors may affect the utilization of post-acute rehabilitation.