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Preliminary report on admission profiles for children under 5 years old in Taiwan: disparities between 2000 and 2009
Min-Sho Ku1, Ko-Huang Lue, Shiuan-Shinn Lee
1Department of Pediatrics, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
Insights
Hospital admission rates for children under 5 in Taiwan increased from 2000 to 2009, with higher costs despite fewer hospitalization days. Further efforts are needed to reduce child morbidity.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Public Health Surveillance
- Healthcare Economics
Background:
- Limited data exists on pediatric hospital admission profiles, including rates, diagnoses, and costs.
- Understanding these trends is crucial for effective public health planning and resource allocation for children under 5.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the admission profiles of children under 5 years old in Taiwan.
- To analyze trends in admission rates, leading diagnoses, disease categories, hospitalization duration, and costs between 2000 and 2009.
Main Methods:
- Utilized 5% of admission data for children under 5 from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database for 2000 and 2009.
- Calculated admission rates, analyzed leading diagnoses and disease categories, and assessed average hospitalization days and costs.
- Employed incidence rate ratios (IRR) to evaluate between-year differences.
Main Results:
- The pediatric admission rate per thousand children increased from 153.1 in 2000 to 172.9 in 2009.
- Common disease categories remained consistent, but hospitalization days decreased by 3.7% while medical expenditures rose by 10.9% in 2009.
- Incidence rate ratios indicated significant changes in admission patterns over the study period.
Conclusions:
- The study highlights an increasing trend in pediatric hospital admissions and rising healthcare costs in Taiwan.
- Recommendations include efforts to decrease admission rates and hospitalization days to align with developed countries.
- The findings provide essential baseline data for future evaluations of child morbidity and healthcare interventions.
Background/Purpose:
Data on hospital admissions for children under 5 years old, concerning the admission rate, leading diagnoses, categories of disease, average hospitalization days, costs and between-year differences are scarce. Our study aims to investigate such admission profiles.
Methods:
Five percent of admission data for children under 5 years old in 2000 and 2009 was collected from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. We calculated the admission rate in regards to total admission, the patients' gender, the ten leading diagnoses, the ten most systemic common categories of disease, and the average hospitalization days and costs. The differences of the rates between 2000 and 2009 were evaluated by incidence rate ratios (IRR).
Results:
The admission rate per thousand children (population) was higher in 2009 (172.9) than 2000 (153.1). The ten most common systemic categories of disease were similar in both years. Furthermore, it was observed that the hospitalization days decreased by 3.7% in 2009, while medical expenditures increased by 10.9%.
Conclusions:
Efforts should be made to decrease the admission rate and hospitalization days in Taiwan to the levels of well-developed countries. Our data may serve as baseline data for future evaluations of child morbidity.
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