[Inter-hospital comparison of perinatal intensive care in academic hospitals]

Data on infants born in 1983 with a gestational age of less than 32 weeks and a birth weight under 1500 g were collected in the Project on Preterm and Small for gestational age infants (POPS). It was found that the mortality odds of these neonates were lowest when they were born in one of the eight departments of obstetrics in university hospitals and subsequently admitted to the neonatal intensive care units (PICUs). Comparison of the eight PICUs revealed considerable differences in crude mortality but this was due to differences between the groups of patients. After correction for this variability by means of a multivariate analysis technique (logistic regression), no statistically significant differences in mortality were found. The actual mortality rates in all PICUs virtually equalled the mortality to be expected on the basis of the abnormalities in the patient groups in question.