January 8, 2026
A new JAMA Network Open study on alcohol-related hospitalizations caught Healio’s attention for what it didn’t show as much as what it did. Alcohol use disorder hospital outcomes held roughly steady in one sense, admission rates barely moved from 2016 to 2022, but got measurably worse in another. Healio brought in Dr. Sherma Morton, Eleanor Health’s National Medical Director, to explain the gap.
“The study documents a concerning increase in severity and poor outcomes among hospitalized patients.”
— Dr. Sherma Morton, Eleanor Health
The numbers back that up. In-hospital mortality rose from 2.4% to 3.1% over the study period, average hospital stays grew from 5.6 to 6.2 days, and total costs reached $32.6 billion in 2022, even as the overall number of admissions barely moved. Morton pointed to a pattern behind those alcohol use disorder hospital outcomes: people are increasingly presenting later in disease progression, with more advanced organ damage, something she connects in part to lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her recommendations focus on catching problems earlier and handing people off better after a hospital stay: screening tools like AUDIT-C, starting medication treatment during the hospitalization itself rather than waiting for discharge, and building “warm handoffs” to outpatient care within 48 to 72 hours, the window where people are most likely to fall through the cracks. She also pushed for changes further upstream, including expanded insurance coverage for addiction treatment, hospital-based addiction consultation teams, and population-level tools like alcohol taxation and outlet density limits, all aimed at reducing the severity of future alcohol-related hospitalizations, not just tracking how many happen.
About Eleanor Health
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Eleanor Health delivers comprehensive, evidence-based care for individuals affected by substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder, and mental health conditions. With a whole-person, trauma-informed approach, Eleanor Health is committed to improving the lives of its members, their families, and their communities.
