Hospitalizations of adults with intellectual disability in academic medical centers.
Adults with ID hospitalized in the US have longer, repeat stays and high ICU use—start care coordination early.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Schroeder et al. (2014) looked at hospital charts for adults with intellectual disability. They wanted to see how these patients used big teaching hospitals.
The team counted ICU stays and total days in the hospital. They did not test a treatment.
What they found
Adults with ID stayed longer and landed in the ICU more often than other adults. Their stays were complex and hard to predict.
How this fits with other research
Nijs et al. (2016) saw the opposite in Norway. There, adults with ID stayed about the same length as everyone else. The gap likely comes from Norway’s universal primary care that keeps small problems small.
Kovačič et al. (2020) followed the same group over time. They found many adults with ID return to the hospital within 30 days, backing up the idea that US stays are both long and repeated.
Patton et al. (2020) add another piece: adults with ID are 28 % more likely to be admitted because of a medication error. This helps explain why their stays turn complex so quickly.
Why it matters
If you serve adults with ID, flag them at admission. Ask for pharmacy review, check for multiple chronic conditions, and start discharge planning on day one. These small steps can trim long stays and cut readmissions.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add an ID flag to the hospital hand-off sheet and request medication review within 24 hours.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) represent a small but important group of hospitalized patients who often have complex health care needs. Individuals with ID experience high rates of hospitalization for ambulatory-sensitive conditions and high rates of hospitalizations in general, even when in formal community care systems; however, no research was found on the common reasons for which this population is hospitalized. Academic medical centers often treat the most complex patients, and data from these centers can provide insight into the needs of patient populations with complex needs. The purpose of this study was to analyze descriptive data from the UHC (formerly known as the University Healthsystem Consortium; an alliance of 115 U.S. academic medical centers and 300 of their affiliated hospitals) regarding common reasons for hospitalization, need for intensive care, and common hospitalization outcome measures of length of stay and complications for adult (age ≥ 18) patients with ID. Findings indicate the need for specific attention to the needs of hospitalized patients with ID.
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-52.3.187