I think people outside the USA severely overestimate how long hospital stays are here.
Like, appendectomy, right? That's maybe 24-36 hours door-to-door if there's no complications. If the appendix actually burst it might be 3 days, but only because they're giving you IV antibiotics and setting up home care to do that at home would take longer than just keeping you in the hospital.
A scheduled surgery like a hysterectomy, cholecystectomy, mastectomy, or anything else they can do laparoscopically (though small "keyhole" incisions)? You're probably not staying overnight at all.
Planned surgeries that need some kind of after care (like bariatric surgery, knee replacements, hip replacements, total vaginal hysterectomies, bladder lifts, etc...) would be usually 1-3 days.
Minor heart attack? 2-3 days.
Fracture and surgical repair of a large bone (like the femur)? About 2-3 days.
What about the exacerbation of a chronic illness like asthma, COPD, heart failure, or hypertension? IF they admit you (not just stabilize and discharge from the emergency department), it will be generally less than about 3-5 days.
Gunshot wound to the abdomen with surgery to repair things? 3-5 days.
And a stroke, sepsis, gunshot wound to the chest, or major heart attack? That would be somewhere in the 5-7 day range.
Severe trauma with multiple severely broken bones and relatively extensive surgery? This might be somewhat longer, but usually for nursing and pain control reasons rather than the surgery or injuries themselves. 1-3 weeks would be usual.
In the hospital for a mental health reason like decompensated schizophrenia or major depression? A little less than a week is normal, though some people stay several weeks if medications aren't working well.
The people who stay in hospitals for weeks or months typically have whole systems that don't work, or are waiting for a major organ transplant. For example, I had a patient once whose entire abdomen was open and couldn't be closed surgically. She was on TPN (IV nutrition) and IV antibiotics and needed massive amounts of wound care done every hour or so because her intestinal contents were spilling out of her open abdomen. She was there for months and ultimately didn't make it.
Are there people who stay longer than these cases? Of course! These are just averages pulled from medicaid data and personal experiences, based on patients who are coming in relatively healthy. Patients who have other significant health problems usually stay longer than patients who come in with a single problem.
But if you are otherwise healthy except for the reason you came into the hospital, unless you fell off a building or were in a massive car accident you are probably not staying in the hospital very long at all.
