Hospital Encounters for Persons Experiencing Homelessness in California: Patient Demographics by Facility, 2021-2022

From 2021-2022, persons experiencing homelessness (PEH) accounted for 2.9 percent of hospital encounters in California hospitals.

Key Findings#

• From 2021-2022, patients experiencing homelessness (PEH) accounted for 872,966 hospital encounters in California (233,222 inpatient (IP) hospitalizations and 639,744 emergency department (ED) visits).
• The “19 to 39” age group (33.3 percent) combined with the “40 to 59” age group (43.2 percent) make up 76.5 percent of IP hospitalizations for PEH versus 40.2 percent of Non-Homeless IP hospitalizations for those same combined age groups.
• In the ED setting, the percent of visits for Black PEH (23.8 percent) and American Indian/Alaska Native PEH (0.5 percent) are approximately twice the percent of visits for Non-Homeless Black and Non-Homeless American Indian/Alaska Native (9.9 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively).
• In the IP setting, the percent of hospitalizations for Hispanic PEH (27.0 percent) and Asian/Pacific Islander PEH (2.2 percent) are considerably lower than the percent of hospitalizations for Non-Homeless Hispanic (34.4 percent) and Non-Homeless Asian/Pacific Islander (9.9 percent).
• For all settings, males comprise over 71 percent of encounters for PEH, but only about 45 percent of the Non-Homeless encounters.
• Medi-Cal is the expected payer for the majority of IP hospitalizations for PEH (64.7 percent), whereas Medicare (34.9 percent), Medi-Cal (30.4 percent), and Private Coverage (29.5 percent) are roughly equally represented for Non-Homeless IP hospitalizations.

Why Publish Hospital Encounters for Persons Experiencing Homelessness in California: Patient Demographics by Facility, 2021-2022?#

Hospital encounters for patients experiencing homelessness (PEH) is an important indicator of hospital and health system utilization. The Hospital Encounters for Persons Experiencing Homelessness in California: Patient Demographics by Facility, 2021-2022 visualizations show the percent of encounters (IP hospitalizations or ED visits) for “Homeless” patients and the percent of encounters for “Non-Homeless” patients, which enables the user to identify differences between the two groups. The Statewide percentages are provided in the hover over function (Tool Tip) for each of the bar charts to compare custom selections to the related Statewide percentages.

For each demographic topic–Age group, Race/ethnicity, Assigned Sex at Birth, and Expected Payer–the user can view graphs for a single hospital or multiple hospitals. The visualizations can also be filtered by county, healthcare system, hospital ownership, licensed bed size, urban/rural designation and Health Professional Shortage Area – Primary Care and Mental Health.

A Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) is a geographic area, population group, or healthcare facility that has been designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as having a shortage of health professionals.

How HCAI Created This Product#

• This product was created using the 2021 and 2022 Patient Discharge Data and Emergency Department Data.
• “Homeless” encounters are defined by ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes of “Z59.0,” “Z59.00,” “Z59.01,” and “Z59.02” in any diagnosis position and/or patient ZIP code of “ZZZZZ” (homeless).
• The County is based on the location of the treating hospital.

Additional Information#

Topic: Healthcare Utilization
Source Link: Healthcare Utilization – Patient Level Administrative Data
Citation: HCAI – Patient Discharge Data, Emergency Department Data – Hospital Encounters for Persons Experiencing Homelessness in California: Patient Demographics by Facility, 2021-2022
Temporal Coverage: 2021-2022
Spatial/Geographic Coverage: Statewide
Frequency: Annually