Emergency Departments Are The First Stop For Millions Of Hospital Patients, USA

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Bipolar
Article Date: 06 Apr 2006 - 0:00 PDT

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More than half (55 percent) of the 29.3 million admissions to U.S. community hospitals for conditions other than pregnancy, childbirth and neonatal care begin in the hospital emergency department (ED), according to HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, an AHRQ database that is part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), show that in 2003 more than 16 million Americans, including children, were admitted for further treatment or observation. People in the Northeast were the most likely to enter hospitals through EDs relative to the population in their region and those in the West were the least likely.

More than one quarter (26 percent) of all patients admitted through the ED had heart or blood vessel diseases, 15 percent had respiratory diseases, 14 percent had digestive disorders and 11 percent had injuries.

Pneumonia led the top 20 specific conditions warranting hospitalization through the ED with 935,000 admissions in 2003. Other leading conditions included congestive heart failure, chest pain, hardening of the arteries and heart attack. Chronic obstructive lung disease ranked 6th and stroke ranked 7th, with 436,000 hospital admissions through the ED. Irregular heart beat was number 8, with 425,800 admissions, followed by complications from surgery or other procedures, devices, implants or grafts (412,700) and depression and bipolar disorders (387,500 admissions). Diabetes mellitus with or without complications ranked 14th (325,800).

The average hospital stay for a patient admitted through the ED cost $7,400. Government payers - Medicare and state Medicaid programs - bore the greatest burden of hospital admissions through the ED, covering 66 percent of all such admissions.

The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) is database of hospital inpatient stays that is nationally representative of all short-term, non-federal hospitals. The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the United States and include all patients, regardless of insurance type as well as the uninsured. For more data, see , and Reasons for Being Admitted to the Hospital through the Emergency Department, 2003, HCUP Statistical Brief # 2 at hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs.jsp

ahrq.gov

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Unwin Jones. "Emergency Departments Are The First Stop For Millions Of Hospital Patients, USA." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 6 Apr. 2006. Web.
15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/41050.php>

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