LO085: Canadian in-hospital mortality for patients with emergency-sensitive conditions

Abstract

Introduction: The emergency department (ED) hospital standardized mortality ratio (ED-HSMR) measures risk-adjusted mortality for patients admitted to hospital with conditions for which ED care may improve outcomes (emergency-sensitive conditions). This study aimed to describe in-hospital mortality across Canadian provinces using the ED-HSMR. Methods: Data were extracted from hospital discharge databases from April 2009 to March 2012. The ED-HSMR was calculated as the ratio of observed deaths among patients with emergency-sensitive conditions in a hospital during a year (2010-11 or 2011-12) to the expected deaths for the same patients during the reference year (2009-10), multiplied by 100. The expected deaths were estimated using predictive models fitted from the reference year for different hospital peer-groups (teaching, large, medium and small hospitals) adjusted for comorbidities, age, diagnosis, and hospital length of stay. Thirty-seven validated emergency-sensitive conditions were included (e.g., stroke, sepsis, shock). Aggregated provincial ED-HSMR values were derived from patient-level probabilities of death. A HSMR above or below 100 respectively means that more or fewer deaths than expected occurred in hospital within a province. Results: During the study period, 1,335,379 patients were admitted to 629 hospitals across 11 provinces and territories with an emergency-sensitive condition as the most responsible diagnosis, of which 8.9% died. More in-hospital deaths (95% confidence interval) than expected were respectively observed for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12 in Newfoundland [124.3 (116.3-132.6) & 117.6 (110.1-125.5)] and Nova Scotia [116.4 (110.7-122.5) & 108.7 (103.0-114.5)], while mortality was as expected in Prince Edward Island and Manitoba, and less than expected in other provinces and territories [Territories 67.3 (48.3-91.3) & 73.2 (55.0-95.5); New Brunswick 87.7 (82.5-93.1) & 90.4 (85.2-95.8); British Columbia 92.0 (89.6-94.4) & 87.1 (84.9-89.3); Saskatchewan 92.3 (87.1-97.4) & 90.8 (86.2-95.6); Ontario 94.0 (92.6-95.4) & 88.0 (86.6-89.3); Alberta 94.1 (91.1-97.2) & 91.0 (88.2-93.9); Québec 95.7 (93.8-97.6) & N/A]. Conclusion: Our study revealed important variation in risk-adjusted mortality for patients admitted to hospital with emergency-sensitive conditions among Canadian provinces. The results should trigger more in-depth evaluations to identify the causes for these regional variations.