Hospital Deaths Decreased Significantly From 1994 To 2004, According To AHRQ

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 15 Oct 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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Hospital deaths from heart attacks and other serious conditions decreased significantly from 1994 to 2004, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Bloomberg/Detroit News reports. According to the report, hospital deaths from heart attacks decreased by 43 per 1,000 patients from 1994 to 2004, and deaths from congestive heart failure, pneumonia and stroke each decreased by about 30 per 1,000 patients over the same period.

The report also found that an estimated 136,000 hospital patients who would have died from six conditions in 1994 survived in 2004. Mamatha Pancholi, a research analyst with AHRQ, said that the decrease in deaths resulted in part because hospitals have increased focus on quality of care and are "taking advantage of improved treatment options and better technology." In addition, he said that hospitals have improved efforts to categorize patient conditions and treatments "so we get better data on what's really happening."

Emergency Physician Survey
In related news, the American College of Emergency Physicians on Tuesday released a survey of 1,500 emergency physicians that found an increase in hospital overcrowding in the past year. According to the survey, about half of respondents cited cases in which patients experienced unnecessary complications because they had to wait for a hospital bed, and 200 cited cases in which patients died because they had to wait. About 80% of respondents said that the use of "boarding," in which hospitals admit ED patients when no rooms are available and leave them in hallways for extended periods of time, increased in the past year, the survey found (Waters, Bloomberg/Detroit News, 10/11).

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