A new Oregon Health Authority (OHA) dashboard that offers transparency and insights into hospital and emergency department discharge data aims to help both the general public and policymakers better understand a variety of pressing hospital trends.

Among the Oregon Hospital Discharge Data Dashboard's many findings is that the state’s average emergency department visit lasts 5.2 hours. The dashboard also reveals Medicaid is the top source of insurance for both hospital and emergency department care and the average hospital stay is five days longer for those who are discharged to skilled nursing facilities for further care.

“The Oregon Hospital Discharge Data Dashboard is designed to help communities better understand their local hospitals and how people receive hospital care across Oregon,” said OHA Health Policy and Analytics Division Director Clare Pierce-Wrobel. “Our interactive online tool is packed with valuable information that state leaders can use to inform how they address numerous issues ranging from emergency department overcrowding to delays in discharging patients, maintaining labor and delivery services as the birth rate declines, and meeting growing behavioral health care needs.”

The dashboard offers a user-friendly way to explore complex data about patients who receive care at Oregon hospitals and emergency departments. Every quarter hospitals are required to provide data on patients they discharge from emergency and hospital care, also known as inpatient care. Previously, the tool’s full data was available only as a spreadsheet upon request.

The dashboard features data related to lengths of stay, primary diagnoses, where patients go after being discharged, patient demographics and more. Users can explore discharge data for all of Oregon as well as individual hospitals, and in both 12-month and three-month increments.

A sampling of noteworthy statistics from the dashboard includes:

Lengths of stay, between July and September 2024:

Statewide, the average hospital stay was 4.8 days.
- But when examining a year’s worth of data that ended in September 2024, the average stay at individual hospitals varied between 2.3 to 15.9 days.
Statewide, the average emergency department visit was 5.2 hours.
- But when examining a year’s worth of data that ended in September 2024, the average stay at individual emergency departments varied between 2.6 to 26.1 hours. The longest time was an outlier that came from a behavioral health-focused emergency department.
Patients who were discharged to a skilled nursing facility for further care stayed in the hospital an average of five days longer (8.8 days) than those who were discharged to their homes for routine, self-care (3.8 days).
Patients who were homeless stayed in hospitals an average of 2.9 more days than those who were housed.

Health insurance, between January 2024 and September 2024:

Medicaid was the leading source of insurance for both hospital and emergency department patients. The joint federal-state health plan covered 27% of hospital care and 39.3% of emergency care.
The next most common insurance type depended on where patients received care:
- Medicare Advantage plans were the second-highest type of insurance among hospitalized patients, covering 25.3% of those discharged.
- Commercial insurance was the second-highest type of insurance among emergency department patients, covering 23.9% of those discharged.

Primary diagnoses, between October 2023 and September 2024:

The most common primary diagnosis of hospitalized patients who received emergency care before being admitted was sepsis, a life-threatening complication of infection.
Birth and pregnancy-related conditions were the top four diagnoses among patients who were directly admitted to the hospital without visiting an emergency department.
Among patients who only received care in an emergency department:
- Different forms of chest pain were the top two diagnoses.
- Respiratory infection and COVID-19 were the next most-common diagnoses.

Childbirth:

Between 2019 and 2023, Oregon’s hospital-based deliveries declined about 8.8%.
Between October 2023 and September 2024, 52.6% of deliveries in Oregon hospitals were covered by commercial insurance, followed by 44% covered by Medicaid.

Behavioral health:

Between October 2023 and September 2024:
- Statewide, 3.3% of hospital and 3.6% of emergency department discharges involved patients with a primary diagnosis of mental health or substance use disorder.
- While more patients with a primary diagnosis of mental health (28.9%) stayed in the hospital for 7-13 days, most who did not (45.5%) were only hospitalized 0-2 days.
Between July and September 2024, people with a primary diagnosis of mental health or substance use disorder spent more time in the emergency department compared to those who didn’t. Youth with this primary diagnosis spent 7.7 more hours and adults spent 3.9 more hours.

Source: Oregon Health Authority

Michael Berry