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  • Title: Mortality during hospitalisation for pneumonia in Alberta, Canada, is associated with physician volume.
    Author: Marrie TJ, Carriere KC, Jin Y, Johnson DH.
    Journal: Eur Respir J; 2003 Jul; 22(1):148-55. PubMed ID: 12882465.
    Abstract:
    The association of mortality with patient factors (severity of illness, comorbidity), physician factors (specialty training, prehospitalisation visit, in-hospital consultation, volume of patients seen per physician) and healthcare organisation factors (patient-travel distances, regional beds per capita, admitting hospital-bed occupancy, admitting hospital-bed turnover, hospital location, volume of pneumonia cases per hospital) after hospital admission with community-acquired pneumonia was investigated using administrative data from Alberta, Canada from April 1, 1994-March 31, 1999. During the 5-yr study period there were 43,642 pneumonia hospitalisations, with an 11% in-hospital and 26% 1-yr mortality. Patient severity of illness and comorbidity were the strongest predictors of increased mortality. Physicians with the highest in-hospital pneumonia patient volume (>27 patients x yr(-1)) cared for patients with greater severity/comorbidity, but with decreased odds of in-hospital mortality, compared with the lowest volume physicians (less than seven patients per year). The effects of internal medicine specialist or subspecialist care were mixed, with a reduction in deaths for the first 72 h and an increase in in-hospital deaths. Prehospitalisation visit by a physician was associated with decreased mortality. Healthcare organisation factors were the least strong predictor of mortality, demonstrating an effect only for 1-yr mortality in those discharged alive from hospital. Admissions to larger volume or metropolitan hospitals were associated with a decrease in mortality. Severity of illness and comorbidity had the strongest association with mortality. The first association of high-volume physician and pre-hospital care with decreased in-hospital mortality for community-acquired pneumonia is reported.
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