National Hospital Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1992

An estimated 31 million patients, excluding newborn infants, were discharged from short-stay non-Federal hospitals in the United States in 1992. Inpatients in 1992 used 190.4 million days of care. The average length of stay was 6.2 days and the discharge rate was 122.1 discharges per 1,000 civilian population. These statistics, along with other inpatient data by diagnoses, procedures, sex, age, and geographic region, are presented in the NCHS report, National Hospital Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1992.

Of the 31 million patients discharged, 66 percent underwent one or more surgical, diagnostic, or therapeutic procedures. Approximately 14 percent of all surgical procedures and 21 percent of all nonsurgical procedures were performed on patients 75 years of age and over.

According to the report, 194,000 patients with a diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection were discharged from short-stay non-Federal hospitals in 1992. This contrasts sharply with the 10,000 HIV patients discharged in 1984, the first year HIV discharge statistics were collected for this study.

Data on hospital discharges are collected through the NCHS annual National Hospital Discharge Survey. Information is obtained from a national sample of the hospital records of discharged patients.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007