Survival during and after hospitalization: a medical record linkage.
BACKGROUND
In Sweden, hospital stays, deaths, and censuses have long been stored on electronic media.


OBJECTIVE
To apply post-hospital survival measures to hospitals having different degrees of specialization by linking existing data in census and in-patient registers.


METHODS
In-patient records totaling 3.6 million were collected. They were linked to the 1985 and 1990 censuses regarding patients' background data, and the cause of death registers. Observed three-month mortalities in 27 diagnoses were contrasted against the expected.


RESULTS
The three-month survival was lower than expected in some large, and, more often, in small hospitals [corrected].
Svartbo
B
B
Department of Social Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden.
Olov Bygren
L
L
Gunnarsson
T
T
Steen
L
L
Ribe
M
M
D002423:Cause of Death; D019352:Censuses; D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012042:Registries; D017741:Survivors; D013548:Sweden