title: Survival of adult high-cost patients. Report of a follow-up study from nine acute-care hospitals.
abstract: To assess the degree to which high-cost illness is terminal illness, survival data were obtained on a random sample of 776 adult high-cost patients from nine acute-care hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area. Two years after discharge, at least 34% of high-cost patients had died. These patients accounted for 39% of the hospital charges incurred by the total group of patients studied. Among the factors significantly associated with death were a diagnosis of cancer (62% death), age older than 64 years (44% death), discharge from a medical (as opposed to surgical) service (42% death), and hospital bill of $10,000 and more (48% death). In-hospital and posthospital death rates varied greatly among the nine hospitals. The data suggest that large amounts of medical care are consumed by patients with unfavorable prognoses.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002140:California; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003422:Critical Care / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D011897:Random Allocation