title: Use of a proprietary database to examine lengths of hospital stay of patients who received drug therapy for acute myocardial infarction.
abstract: Lengths of hospital stay of patients who received streptokinase therapy and of patients who received conventional i.v. heparin or nitroglycerin therapy for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were determined using the International Health Services, Ltd., (IHS) database. Patients in all IHS-participating hospitals who had received streptokinase in conjunction with an AMI between October 1985 and September 1986 were identified from the database. Diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) 121 and 122 were found to contain patients who potentially could serve as the study population. Based on examination of length-of-stay data from the medical record database at the study hospital, the IHS study population was refined to include AMI patients 75 years of age or younger with stage 2 disease (intermediate severity) in DRG 121 or stage 1 disease (least severe) in DRG 122 and a length of stay of at least seven days. Patients who met those criteria and had been treated with heparin, nitroglycerin, or both served as a control group. The mean length of stay of patients treated with streptokinase (113 patients) was significantly shorter than that of patients treated with heparin (1332 patients) or nitroglycerin (752 patients). Patients treated with streptokinase had a length of stay 1.2 days shorter than patients treated with heparin and 1.3 days shorter than patients treated with nitroglycerin. The database proved to be useful for determining lengths of patient stay associated with thrombolytic and conventional medical therapy for AMI. Thrombolytic therapy may be a cost-effective treatment for AMI because length of stay may be somewhat shorter.
authors.affiliation: Drug Information and Research Division, Philadelphia, PA.
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Hopkins
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Crabbe
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Chase
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D006493:Heparin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000188:drug therapy*; D005996:Nitroglycerin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D013300:Streptokinase / Q000627:therapeutic use; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D006493:Heparin; D013300:Streptokinase; D005996:Nitroglycerin