title: Fifteen years of inpatient care in an academic division of general internal medicine: 1980-1994. Trends over time in patient's diagnoses, case-severity, case-complexity and mortality rate.
abstract: We describe the trends over time in patient's diagnoses, case-complexity, case-severity, length of stay and mortality rate during the last 15 years in an academic division of general internal medicine (GIM). Our study shows that GIM patients presented with a broad spectrum of diseases. Moreover, important changes were observed in the patient characteristics, i.e. a progressive increase in urgent admissions, severe medical conditions and elderly population. This evolution was associated with a significant rise in case-severity and case-complexity which explains the observed increase in hospital mortality rate. These variables should be accounted for when analyzing processes and outcomes of inpatient medical care in internal medicine.
authors.affiliation: Divisions of General Internal Medicine, University of Louvain Medical School, UCL, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beguin
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Boland
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: van Mullem
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: van Mullem
authors.forename: F R
authors.initials: FR
authors.lastname: France
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Coche
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lambert
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001530:Belgium; D005260:Female; D006748:Hospital Departments; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity / Q000639:trends*; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D012720:Severity of Illness Index