In-hospital death of critically ill patients who have congestive heart failure: does size of hospital matter?
Data from the British Columbia Linked Health Database were analyzed to determine if size of hospital is associated with in-hospital death of critically ill adults whose admitting diagnosis is congestive heart failure (CHF). Patients who were <19 years of age, transferred from or to other hospitals, or who developed CHF as a complication were excluded. In unadjusted logistic regression analysis of 2616 patients, the odds ratio (OR) for in-hospital death associated with a doubling of the number of hospital beds was 1.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.03-1.23; P = .01). After adjustment for age, sex, CHF-specific comorbidity index, number of cardiac and noncardiac procedures, number of hospital admissions for CHF in the preceding year, and socioeconomic variables, the OR was 1.08 (95% CI = 0.96-1.20; P = .21). The conclusion is that the adjusted rate of in-hospital deaths for this patient group does not differ significantly based solely on the number of acute hospital beds.
Dubord
Janet
J
St. Paul's Hospital, University of British Columbia,Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Dodek
Peter M
PM
Chan
Keith
K
Keenan
Sean P
SP
Marion
Stephen
S
Wong
Hubert
H
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001955:British Columbia / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000401:mortality*; D019992:Databases as Topic; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000401:mortality*; D006742:Hospital Bed Capacity; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies