title: Value of keeping records of mortality.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate treatment and complications which is essential for good medical practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective audit.
  
  
  METHODS
  City hospital, The Netherlands.
  
  
  METHODS
  All the patients who died on the surgical ward between 1994 and 1998 and were classified according to four categories of mortality recording.
  
  
  METHODS
  The causes of death, inaccuracies in treatment and the extent of agreement between premortem and postmortem findings were documented.
  
  
  METHODS
  Morbidity and mortality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 11,195 patients admitted, 420 (4%) deceased during their hospital stay. Most patients died of the disease with which they presented at admission (n = 176, 42%) or of complications (n = 167, 40%). In 20% (n = 83) of the cases a shortcoming in the clinical course was found. 251 of the 420 patients who died (60%) had a necropsy. 53 of the 251 reports (21%) gave information that could have had an effect on the treatment or the clinical course.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Recording mortality is a way of testing the diagnostic and therapeutic accuracy in our quest for a high quality of care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Red Cross Hospital, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan Willem H P
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Lardenoye
authors.forename: Arie Pieter
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Kappetein
authors.forename: Mark-Paul F M
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Vrancken Peeters
authors.forename: Pieter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Spaander
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Breslau
mesh_terms: D001344:Autopsy; D002423:Cause of Death; D003933:Diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008499:Medical Records; D009026:Mortality; D009426:Netherlands; D013812:Therapeutics / Q000592:standards