National
Hospital Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1996
An
estimate of 30.5 million patients, excluding newborn infants, were discharged from
short-stay non-Federal hospitals in the United States in 1996. This and other inpatient
data are presented in a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Inpatients
in 1996 used 159.9 million days of hospital care. The average length of stay was 5.2 days
and the discharge rate was 115.7 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,
1996."
Data
Highlights: Deliveries and
heart disease combined accounted for 8 million discharges and made up 26 percent of all
first-listed diagnoses. Heart disease
was the first-listed diagnosis for 23 percent of discharges for patients 65 years and
over. At least one
procedure was reported for 63 percent of discharges. In 1996, 73
percent of women with deliveries were hospitalized for less than 3 days, compared with
only 26 percent in 1980. In 1996, 73
percent of all human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) discharges were male and 71 percent were
25-44 years of age.Keywords: hospitalization,
inpatient, diagnoses, procedures