Objective: Characterizing province-wide hospital admissions in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to inform future healthcare improvement in this population.

Background: Persons with PD have longer hospital stays and are more likely to experience adverse events. The province of Alberta, Canada has a single healthcare provider (Alberta Health Services) which allows population-level data collection from all healthcare facilities.

Method: We performed a population-based, retrospective cohort study using discharge abstract data hospital admissions from 2011 through 2021 in Alberta. We extracted data from the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD), which contains ICD-10-CA coded diagnoses for all patients discharged from hospital. Hospitalizations with PD as both main and pre-admission comorbid diagnoses were identified using the ICD-10-CA G20 (PD) and F02.3 (Dementia in PD) codes. Admissions to critical care, out of province patients, admissions for DBS implantation, and rehabilitation hospital stays were excluded.

Results: A total of 12,879 hospitalizations were identified during the study period. Of this group, 11% were residing at a long-term care (LTC) facility prior to admission. Median length of hospital stay was 10 days (interquartile range 20). For most patients, the attending service was family practice/general practice (65%) followed by internal medicine (18%) and orthopaedic surgery (5%). In-hospital adverse events occurred in 10% of admissions; 1% were life-threatening. The rate of adverse events did not differ between those from LTC and others. Among those not from LTC, discharge destinations included home (63%), LTC (17%), a rehabilitation facility (7%), and other (6%). In-hospital mortality was 8% overall (1058); this was higher among the patients who were admitted from LTC (17%) compared to from other facilities (7%).

Conclusion: Our study describes the landscape of outcomes after PD hospitalization in a Canadian context. One quarter of PD patients previously not institutionalized do not return to the same level of care after hospitalization. Additionally, the hospitalization experience of patients coming from LTC is unique. Future directions include further analysis of this data to understand predictors for adverse outcomes and guide improvements in care delivery.

References: An earlier version of this project has been accepted for poster presentation at the American Academic of Neurology Annual Meeting in April 2023. It has not been previously presented at the time of abstract submission.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/characterizing-hospital-admissions-in-parkinsons-disease-10-year-retrospective-study-of-administrative-data-in-alberta-canada/