Relationship between bacteriology report time in the morning and length of stay in hospital after the report

•There was a linear association between bacteriology report time and length of stay.•The earlier the report in the morning the shorter the length of stay (LOS).•This relationship was only strong for patients in the hospital <168 h (1 week).•Report time earlier in the morning could allow earlier discharge planning.

We studied the relationship between the time of day bacteriology reports were available in the electronic medical record (Epic, Verona, WI) and subsequent length of stay (LOS) following the last report before discharge. All patients ≥18 years admitted to the UF Health Shands Hospital between 1/1/2014-2/29/2016 were included. We calculated the mean LOS following the report for each half-hour time period between 6 AM and 1 PM (N = 14, 95.6% of all results) and tested the relationship to subsequent LOS. For patients whose total LOS was ≤168 hours (N = 13,830) there was a highly significant positive linear relationship between the report time and LOS following the last report (r = 0.8813, P = 0.00001556). For those patients with total LOS > 168 h, there was no clear relationship between report time in the morning and LOS after the last bacteriology report. The relationship between bacteriology report time in the morning and use of this information by physicians in discharge decision-making is likely to be complex and multi-factorial, but for those patients with a total hospital LOS ≤168 h, there is a strong relationship between an earlier report and earlier patient discharge.