North Carolina hospitals backed up. (column)

The May/June Government Briefs column highlighted "hospital backup '" It occurs when nursing home beds cannot be found for elderly patients ready for release from a hospital. Apparently, there are no national figures on the problem's extent. Lack of measurement was and is strange in light of the political significance of such data.

One prospective source was a study by Dr. William G. Weissert of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. It was then awaiting publication by a journal called Health Services Research, and Dr Weissert would not reveal its contents beforehand. However he provided a statement printed in the May/June edition of this column that minimized the extent of backup. Further, he said, it may derive from "causes other than a nursing home bed supply shortage'"

North Carolina media recently have investigated backup in that state. Contrary to Dr. Weissert's theory, their sources most frequently have cited restrictive state bedexpansion policy as the main cause, worsened by an appeals process that guarantees delays. Whenever new beds are authorized and awarded, unsuccessful contestants always appeal. That tourniquets expansion.

The beds ar "stuck in the pipeline;' according to John A. Diffey, Chapel Hill, president of the North Carolina Association of Nonprofit Homes for the Aging.

"We would prefer that the CON (certificate-of-need) process be phased out and that Medicaid find another way to ration beds"' he said.

Again, reliable data on the extent of backup are missing. The best attempt was a May 1987 survey by the North Carolina Hospital Association (NCHA). It found that over 2,100 hospital patients ...