Summary: | In Norway, patients hotels market themselves as an option for inpatients that do not need medical attention 24 hours a day and as a respite in the treatment. A patient hotel can offer patients short distance to expertise and treatment if necessary, while the hospital frees a bed to patients with greater need of treatment. A patient hotel can be suitable accommodation for patients before, during or after a hospital stay. In connection with the economic considerations in the regional health authorities a review about the effects of patient hotels would contribute to a clarification to whether to increase the investments in such facilities. The Knowledge Centre received a commission from South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, Department of Service Development and Interaction to summarize the knowledge on effect of patient hotels. The effects of patient hotels should be measured for both the hospital, in terms of costs, but also for the patients, in terms of safety or satisfaction. In the project patient hotels should be compared with other types of accommodation. The project was not limited to studies that compared patient hotels with inpatient stay, but all other accommodations without extensive treatment, also stay in own home. In the project we identified eight studies on the effect of patient hotels. Most of thes studies recruited patients which for Norwegian conditions probably would not be considered residents in a patient hotel. Additionally, most studies included few patients and all of them had high risk of bias. Therefore, we can not draw conclution on effect of patient hotels, neither for hospitals nor for patients when patients are accomodated at a patient hotel before, during or after treatment at a regular hospital ward
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