Are there important differences in comorbidity between surgical and medical inpatients?

Scientific and technological advances are changing medical practice and transforming hospitals, and both the age and comorbidities of hospitalized patients are rapidly increasing. The increasing complexity of these patients and the scant clinical differences between medical and surgical inpatients calls for changes in the organization and delivery of in-hospital care. Our objective has been to assess differences in age and comorbidity between surgical and medical inpatients.

Retrospective, observational, descriptive study in patients aged ≥16 years discharged from all medical and surgical services during 2019, except for obstetrics and intensive care. All data were obtained from the hospital's minimum basic data set and analyzed using univariate analysis.

The study included 31,264 patients: 16,397 from the medical area and 14,867 from the surgical area. Those in the surgical area were 8 years younger (62.69 years [95% CI 62.4-62.98]), with a slightly higher proportion of women (OR 1.12 [95% CI 1.07-1.17]) compared to the medical area, and fewer non-scheduled admissions (OR 0.11 [95% CI 0.10-0.12]). There were no significant differences in comorbidity burden between study groups.

Patients in the surgical area have a high burden of medical comorbidity, similar to those in the medical area. This information is important for surgeons and anesthetists, and should compel hospitals to change the current organizational model.