For years, the West has had the shortest average hospital stays in the nation, a function of the area s heavy enrollment in managed care insurance plans, but those numbers have been rising steadily since 1996. Although the change has been slight, any upswing in hospital length of stay is notable. The largest increases in the West occurred for young adults the average length of stay for people aged 20 to 34 increased 9 percent between 1997 and 1998. Procedures involving childbirth also displayed marked increases.
Hospital stays for elderly people in the West, meanwhile, continue to decrease.
Between 1997 and 1998, the average length of stay for westerners aged 65 and older fell 8 percent. It remains to be seen whether hospital stays in the rest of the country will start to go up. So far, the West is the only area to witness the phenomena, but the change does seem to have impacted statistics for the country as a whole. Although hospital stays are still going down in the U.S., the rate of change has been slower in the last two years than in previous years.