A Retrospective Analysis of Extended Hospital Stays in Patients With Pneumonia and Diabetic Comorbidities in a Rural Midwestern Area

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of hospitalization in the United States, resulting in many hospitalizations and deaths per year. Diabetes is an often-concurrent diagnosis that affects a large population. There is little research regarding the relationship between diabetes and the length of stay for patients hospitalized with pneumonia. This retrospective study aims to analyze whether the presence of diabetes mellitus in patients diagnosed with pneumonia increases the length of stay. Electronic medical records (EMR) from Freeman Health System in Southwest Missouri were utilized to analyze this relationship. Results of this study demonstrated that, in patients diagnosed with diabetes (type I or type II), pneumonia, or a combination of diabetes and pneumonia, pneumonia is the strongest predictor for a hospital stay ≥6 days. Further analysis, looking at age and gender, supported this finding, with pneumonia serving as the dominant factor in patients with hospital stays of ≥6 days duration. While there was no difference in the proportion of increased length of stay between age groups for combined pneumonia and diabetes, patients 65 years old and above had a larger proportion of extended length of stay compared to patients under 65 years old for both just pneumonia and just diabetes individually.