[Inpatient health care utilization for musculoskeletal disorders and injuries: a forecast study for Germany up to 2010].
BACKGROUND
The study is part of the project "Orthopaedics 2010 -- evaluation of the demand for the orthopaedic work force in the year 2010", initiated by the professional association of orthopaedists (BVO). The aim is to estimate the prospective number of orthopaedists for the sufficient medical care of musculoskeletal disorders and injuries.


METHODS
The main data source was the official statistics of discharge rates from 1994 to 1999 and the German population forecasts from 1994 to 2010 of the Federal Office of Statistics, Wiesbaden, Germany. An univariate forecasting analysis was done using the Granger and Newbold method.


RESULTS
All diagnostic categories of musculoskeletal disorders (arthropathies, dorsopathies, rheumatism, osteopathies) will increase up to four-fold from 1994 to 2010. Three of the four diagnostic categories of injuries (dislocations, sprains and strains; contusion; injuries and open wounds) will decrease by up to 15 percent, the diagnostic category of fractures will increase (10 percent). The stratified analyses by gender and age reveal that women and persons over 65 years old are more often affected by musculoskeletal disorders and injuries.


CONCLUSIONS
Both demographic changes and changes in the utilization of inpatient care will lead to a substantial increase of hospital cases up to 2010. The presented results should be looked at together with their confidence limits as interval estimations. In addition, there are independent external factors such as the new prospective payment system (G-DRGs) that will influence the hospital admission rates as well.
Scheuringer
M
M
Bayerischer Forschungs- und Aktionsverbund Public Health München.
Wildner
M
M
Götte
S
S
Dreinhöfer
K E
KE
D017677:Age Distribution; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005544:Forecasting; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009141:Musculoskeletal System / Q000293:injuries*; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014600:Utilization Review; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*