Healthcare Disparities Among Homeless Patients Hospitalized With Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Goals: Examine outcomes among homeless patients admitted with gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, including all-cause mortality and endoscopic intervention rates. Background: Hospitalizations among homeless individuals have increased steadily since at least 2007 but little is known about GI outcomes in these patients. Study: The 2010-2014 Healthcare Utilization Project (HCUP) State Inpatient Databases from New York and Florida were used to identify adults admitted with a primary diagnosis of acute upper or lower GI bleed. Homeless patients were 1:3 matched with nonhomeless patients using a propensity-score greedy-matched algorithm. The primary outcome (all-cause in-hospital mortality) and secondary outcomes (30-day readmission rates, endoscopy utilization, length of stay, and total hospitalization costs) were compared. Results: We matched 4074 homeless patients with 12,222 nonhomeless patients. Most hospitalizations for homeless individuals were concentrated in 113 (26.4%) of 428 hospitals. Homeless adults were more likely to be younger, male, African American or Hispanic, and on Medicaid. They experienced significantly higher odds of all-cause inpatient mortality compared with nonhomeless patients admitted with GI bleeding (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.11-1.69). Endoscopy utilization rates were also lower for both upper (OR 0.62, 95% CI 0.55-0.71) and lower (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.68-0.85) GI bleeding, though upper endoscopy rates within the first 24 hours were comparable (OR 1.11, 95% CI 1.00-1.23). Total hospitalization costs were lower ($9,715 vs. $12,173, P<0.001) while 30-day all-cause readmission rates were significantly higher in the homeless group (14.9% vs. 18.4%, P<0.001). Conclusions: Homeless patients hospitalized for GI bleeding face disparities, including higher mortality rates and lower endoscopy utilization.