National Hospital Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1994

In 1994 there were an estimated 30.8 million patients, excluding newborn infants, discharged from short-stay, non-Federal hospitals in the United States. These patients used 177.2 million days of care and had an average length of stay of 5.7 days. This information, along with other inpatient data by diagnosis, procedure, sex, age, and geographic region, is presented in the National Center for Health Statistics' (NCHS) report, "National Hospital Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1994."

The statistics presented in this report are based on data collected through the National Hospital Discharge Survey for 1994. The survey has been conducted annually by NCHS since 1965. In 1994, data were collected for approximately 277,000 discharges. Of the hospitals eligible for participation, 478 (93 percent) responded to the survey.

Diagnoses and procedures are presented according to their code numbers in the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). Highlights from this report reveal the following:

Deliveries and heart disease together accounted for 8 million discharges and made up 26 percent of all first listed diagnoses.

Patients 65 years of age and over accounted for 37 percent of all discharges and used 47 percent of all days of care although they comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population.

At least one procedure was reported for 64 percent of discharges.

In 1994, deaths accounted for 3 percent of discharges.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007