“…These reductions in inpatient LOS across health systems have been a result of a number of different factors. Within acute hospitals, greater use of more efficient surgery (Downing et al, 2009;Jayne et al, 2010;Laudicella et al, 2016), better discharge planning (Dedhia et al, 2009;Siegler et al, 2013), increasing use of palliative care planning (Brody et al, 2010), reductions in delayed discharges (McCoy et al, 2007;Rae et al, 2007) and more efficient payment mechanisms (Besstremyannaya, 2016;Borghans et al, 2008;Échevin and Fortin, 2014;Farrar et al, 2009) have been shown to reduce LOS. For specific patient populations, focused care units such as early supported discharge units and stroke units (Confalonieri et al, 2015;Keegan and Smith, 2013) and greater provision of non-acute follow-up and rehabilitation care have also been shown to allow patients to be discharged more quickly to potentially more appropriate care settings (Dahl et al, 2015;Gozalo et al, 2015;McCoy et al, 2007;Neiterman et al, 2015;Wren et al, 2014).…”