요양병원 특성과 퇴원환자 지역사회 복귀와의 연관성 = The Relationship between Long-Term Care Hospital Characteristics and Community Reintegration of Discharged Patients

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Background: This study examined the relationship between the characteristics of long-term care hospitals and the community reintegration of discharged patients, aiming to provide foundational evidence for healthcare and elderly care policymaking. Methods: A secondary data analysis was performed using various public datasets, including the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service’s Long-Term Care Hospital Appropriateness Assessment. The study included 991 hospitals from the 2022 (2nd cycle, 4th round) assessment in which community reintegration rate indicators were reported. Multilevel modeling was conducted to account for the two-level hierarchical structure of hospital and regional factors, and subgroup analyses were performed according to hospital location. Results: Hospitals with a larger number of beds and a longer history since establishment showed higher community reintegration rates among discharged patients. Reintegration rates also increased as hospital locations shifted from rural areas to small and medium-sized cities, metropolitan cities, and special metropolitan cities. In addition, regions with a higher number of elderly care facilities tended to have higher reintegration rates. Conclusion: To improve the quality of care in long-term care hospitals, systematic management and training programs are needed for hospitals located in small and medium-sized cities or rural areas, as well as those established more recently. Policy efforts should also focus on building linkage systems between long-term care hospitals and both institutional and home-based elderly care facilities. In addition, active governmental support is required to expand long-term care infrastructure. However, because this study did not incorporate individual-level factors or patients’ actual functional recovery, the findings should be interpreted with caution.