Movement from hospital to residential aged care: preliminary results

The interface between acute hospital care and residential aged care has long been recognised as an important issue in aged care services research. Current hospital and residential aged care national data sets have been designed primarily to provide data on the specific program rather than to examine program interfaces. However, using event-based data linkage it is possible to link the two data sets thereby allowing analysis of the hospital and aged care interface. This report provides preliminary results from this linkage process when applied to data for four states and two territories for 2001–02, and investigates a particular issue—the use of residential aged care for interim care following a period in hospital.