Value of keeping records of mortality.
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.
Lardenoye
Jan Willem H P
JW
Department of Surgery, Red Cross Hospital, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Kappetein
Arie Pieter
AP
Vrancken Peeters
Mark-Paul F M
MP
Spaander
Pieter J
PJ
Breslau
Paul J
PJ
D001344:Autopsy; D002423:Cause of Death; D003933:Diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008499:Medical Records; D009026:Mortality; D009426:Netherlands; D013812:Therapeutics / Q000592:standards