Objectives: To describe a) the length of nursing home (NH) to emergency department (ED) transfer correspondences and b) determine the relationship between NH-ED transfer correspondence length and ED length of stay (LOS).
Methods: This is a secondary analysis of a retrospective cohort study that examined the health records of NH patients who visited one of three Rhode Island EDs included in the study. We used descriptive statistics to examine correspondence length and ED LOS and median quantile regression to evaluate the association between correspondence length and ED LOS.
Results: Of the 456 ED visits, the median correspondence length was 12 pages (25th, 75th percentile: 8.5, 17 pages). For every one-page increase in correspondence length, the median ED LOS was not significantly changed (Coefficient: 0.82 minutes, 95% CI: -0.56, 2.19).
Conclusions: While correspondence length was not associated with ED LOS, this study suggests that stakeholders should work to decrease documentation burden.
Keywords: emergency department; length of stay; nursing home; transfer documentation; transitions of care.