A survey of hospital death rates for almost 47,000 people with heart attacks, stroke, pneumonia and blood poisoning has revealed that 30-day death rates varied from 10 percent to 28 percent across 75 hospitals. The researchers also surveyed some 4,000 nurses and came up with a list of key factors which accounted for the variance.
A research team from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, Canada, studied 46,993 patients admitted to hospital with heart attacks, stroke, pneumonia and blood poisoning.
They discovered that deaths within 30 days of admission varied considerably between the 75 hospitals in the study ? ranging from ten per cent to 28 per cent and averaging just under 17 per cent.
When they added in the survey results from 3,886 nurses at the hospitals – together with official discharge and death rates, population statistics and insurance plan data ? they discovered that a number of factors accounted for 45 per cent of the variation in death rates.
“Our research underlines the need for hospitals to look as carefully at staffing structures and care processes as they already do at accurate diagnosis and appropriate and effective interventions” says lead author Dr Ann Tourangeau.
Data sources for the study included the Ontario Canada Discharge Database for 2002/3, the Ontario Hospital Reporting System 2002/3 and the 2003 Ontario Nurse Survey.