(1) Just-discharged patients, as a class, are orders of magnitude more likely to fall than non-patients: they are often sick; on powerful drugs; in a weakened state; or coming off long bedrest.

(2) Just-discharged patients, as a class, are far more likely to get seriously injured if they do fall than non-patients: they may have stitches or be recovering from an operation; their balance might be off, and so on.

(3) Walking through a hospital can be more difficult than walking in a familiar home to some: the floors are slippery, they can be crowded or bustling. Patients may not know just how far the walk even is – the walk might be quite long.

(4) If a patient does fall and injure himself in a hospital just after being discharged, the protocol for readmittance, not to say the legal status and claims would be complex, to say the least – far more so than in a typical slip and fall.

(5) Doctors are very busy.

(6) It’s not that easy to determine whether a patient is always safe to make the walk. Patients can be weak or disorientated and not even realize it; they might know just how long the walk is or how strong they are. It’s quite common for patients to feel fine in bed or with very light exercise, but still to fatigue very, very quickly after, say, an operation.

Due to (4) and (2), hospitals naturally want to be very cautious here. Due to (1), the only way to determine which patients could safely walk to the door would be for the discharging doctor to individually assess whether the patient could do this safely. This evaluation, due to (6) would be time-consuming and due to (5), would be expensive.

Thus, although it is true that many patients could walk out the door, it is simply inefficient and wasteful for doctors to make that assessment individually. It’s cheaper and more efficient for everyone to be escorted.

I am loath to defend the current medical system, but this particular hospital practice does not seem unreasonable to me, given (1)-(6) above.