Long term acute care vs. suacute care

[Ms.RN]

what are the difference between long term acute care and subacute care or are they almost the same? I know in subacute facility, patients stay long enough to recooperate but eventually go home in few weeks.

[sasha1224]

Long Term Acute Care or LTAC is more for the chronic ICU or chronic Med Surg patient. The last LTAC I worked at was focused on the chronic ICU patients, those patients with trachs on ventilators trying to wean off. These patients were the ones 20 years ago who would stay forever in the ICU because there was no where to send them because they were on vents. These patients also would generally not be able to tolerate intensive rehab programs. My current LTAC more focuses on the chronic med/surg patient(though we still have a 10 bed vent unit). These patients generally are wounds or s/p major surgery and are just not quite ready for intensive rehab. Usually on many meds, IVs, telemetry, tube feeds, TPN, pain management, PCA pumps. The minimum stay is generally 25 days, though I have seen some stay many months. Our goal is to get them to the point of tolerating intensive rehab, transfer to LTC or home depending on their condition. LTAC patients are the ones that used to hang around in short term hospitals for extended periods because they were not ready for rehab, LTC or home. Hence the development of LTACs.