1997 Summary:  National Hospital Discharge Survey

Advance Data 308. 1997 Summary: National Hospital Discharge Survey. 16 pp. (PHS) 99-1250
View/download PDF 105 KB

An estimated 30.9 million inpatients, excluding newborn infants were discharged from short-stay non-Federal hospitals in the United States in 1997. The discharge rate was 1,143.1 per 10,000 population and the average length of stay was 5.1 days. The statistics presented in this report are based on data collected through the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), a continuous survey that has been conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) since 1965.

Data Highlights:

The discharge rate per 10,000 population was 927.0 for males compared to 1,350.2 for females. Males had an average length of stay of 5.5 days compared to 4.8 days for females.

Seven diagnostic categories each accounted for more than a million discharges. These were heart disease (4.2 million), delivery (3.8 million), malignant neoplasms (1.3 million), pneumonia (1.3 million), psychoses (1.2 million), cerebrovascular disease (1.0 million), and fractures (1.0 million).

During 1997, 40.5 million procedures were performed on hospital inpatients.

Frequent procedures for males were arteriography and angiocardiography, cardiac catheterization, respiratory therapy, diagnostic ultrasound, CAT scan, and removal of coronary artery obstruction and insertion of stents.

Frequent procedures for females were episiotomy, repair of current obstetric laceration, ateriography and angiocardiography using contrast material, cesarean section, artificial rupture of membranes, and diagnostic ultrasound.

The average length of stay ranged from 5.9 days in the Northeast region to 4.4 days in the West.

Keywords: hospitals, hospital discharges, diagnoses, procedures

This page last reviewed October 15, 2008