Variability in hospital mortality prior to admission in Spanish hospitals

Deaths in Emergency Departments (ED) should only occur in rare cases. The aim of the study was to describe the distribution of deaths in Spanish hospitals in two locations: the ED or pre-admission and in-hospital or post-admission, and their geographical distribution and possible conditioning factors.

The study was ecological. The percentage of hospital deaths prior to admission (PHDPA) compared to total hospital deaths for each center was calculated. The information was obtained from the "2009 Survey of Health Care Establishments with In-Patient facilities". This survey included information for all the Spanish hospitals. It analyzed geographical variability and its relation to the characteristics of the centers and various indicators of health care activity using non-parametric tests.

The PHDPA was 13.4%, with wide variability between regions: from 7.4% to 16.4%. PHDPA was higher in hospitals with fewer than 100 beds and those with a higher average of emergencies per ED physician.

Our study reveals the important variability in PHDPA. We estimate that if 80% of those patients who had died in the ED had died in the hospital ward, hospital stays would only have been increased by less than 0.1%.