Nursing home shortage and hospital bed-blocking

Lea Bergmann (), Dörte Heger and Christiane Wuckel

No 1108, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: A hospital stay dramatically increases the risk that an elderly person will require long-term care. Due to increasing staff shortages in German nursing homes, patients who require nursing home care directly after a hospital stay often struggle to find a nursing home bed. This paper studies how hospital length of stay differs between care dependent individuals requiring and not requiring a nursing home bed, controlling for potential health differences between these groups. We find that the need for a nursing home bed is associated with approximately a 40% increase in length of stay. Since hospital care is much more expensive than nursing home care, bed-blocking is not only a concern for the patients but also for public policy.

Keywords: Capacity; personnel shortage; long-term care; nursing and care homes; bed-blocking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:306838

DOI: 10.4419/96973286

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