Figure 2. Total and medically unnecessary patient-days by planned discharge disposition.

*Two of 3 patients discharged to a group home had complex barriers to discharge related to longstanding developmental disabilities and therefore the proportion of medically unnecessary to total patient-days for this category was high (0.59 vs 0.36; p = 0.04). An analysis with these patients excluded demonstrated that unnecessary days still amounted to 36% of total hospital days in the study.