Rise in hospital admission may be an artefact

Emergency admissions to British hospitals are believed to be increasing at 5% per year. On p 158, however, Morgan et al suggest that the real rate of increase may be much lower and that the apparent increase is accounted for by a rise in numbers of consultant episodes rather than a rise in admissions. They studied numbers of patients, admissions, and episodes of care for emergency treatment from 1989-90 to 1997-8 in one health authority. Episodes of care rose 4.4% a year but the number of admissions increased by only 2% and the number of people receiving emergency treatment by 1.4%.


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Relevant Article

The rise in emergency admissions---crisis or artefact? Temporal analysis of health services data
Kieran Morgan, David Prothero, and Stephen Frankel
BMJ 1999 319: 158-159. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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