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More than 1 in 5 Hospital Patients in 2008
Were Over 75 Years Old
Newswise, December 27, 2010 — Twenty-two percent of
all admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2008
were for patients born the year that
Franklin D. Roosevelt was first inaugurated
President of the United States or earlier,
according to the latest News and Numbers
from the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality.
Those who ranged in age from 75 to 84 years
accounted for almost 14 percent of the 40
million admissions to U.S. hospitals that
year, while patients age 85 and over made up
another 8 percent.
Together these
most senior of America’s seniors accounted
for 8.7 million hospital admissions in 2008
compared with the 5.3 million admissions of
relatively younger seniors – those between
65 and 74 years of age.
The federal
agency also found that in U.S. hospitals in
2008:
• Treating
patients age 75 and older cost hospitals
more than $92 billion, compared with $65
billion for patients ages 65 to 74.
• People age 85
and older were more than twice as likely to
be hospitalized as 65-to -74 year olds (577
versus 264 stays per 1,000 population). They
were also nearly three times more likely to
require nursing home or other type of
long-term care after leaving the hospital.
• Congestive
heart failure was the number one reason for
hospitalizing people age 85 and older – 44
stays per 1,000 population. Other leading
reasons were pneumonia, blood poisoning,
urinary tract infections, and heart rhythm
disorders – 36, 27, 24, and 23 stays per
1,000 population, respectively.
• For 75-to-84
year olds , the top five reasons for
hospitalization per 1,000 population were:
congestive heart failure (23 stays);
pneumonia (20 stays); heart rhythm disorders
(17 stays); blood poisoning ( 16 stays); and
osteoarthritis (15 stays).
This AHRQ News
and Numbers is based on data in Hospital
Utilization among Oldest Adults, 2008 (http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb103.pdf).
The report uses
data from the 2008 Nationwide Inpatient
Sample, a database of hospital inpatient
stays in all short-term, nonfederal
hospitals. The data are drawn from hospitals
that comprise 90 percent of all discharges
in the United States and include patients,
regardless of insurance type, as well as the
uninsured.
