Prediction of five-year survival for patients admitted to a department of internal medicine.

OBJECTIVE: The effect of many common forms of therapy, as medication for mild hypertension or hypercholesterolaemia, only reaches clinical significance after years of treatment. The meaningful application of such therapy presupposes that physicians can, at least to some extent, predict the remaining lifetime of patients. We investigated whether clinicians from different disciplines were able to predict the 5-year survival of patients admitted to a department of internal medicine. DESIGN: The members of two groups, each consisting of an internist, a surgeon and a general practitioner, made individual predictions of the expected remaining lifetime of discharged patients from written summaries of clinical information. Each patient was randomized to be assessed by the members of either of the two groups. The predictions were compared with actual 5-year survival. SETTING: Department of internal medicine at a university hospital. SUBJECTS: Patients admitted consecutively during a 6-week period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for predictions of 5-year survival for each of the six experts. RESULTS: A total of 402 patients were included. Five-year survival was 0.63. The sensitivity of the predictions ranged from 0.81 to 0.95, the specificity from 0.61 to 0.77, the positive predictive value from 0.78 to 0.87 and the negative predictive value from 0.68 to 0.87. The areas under the ROC curves ranged from 0.84 to 0.91. CONCLUSION: The quality of predictions of 5-year survival made by experienced clinicians should permit the rational use of treatments with long-term effects.

Cost savings and health losses from reducing inappropriate admissions to a department of internal medicine.

OBJECTIVES: Inappropriate hospital admissions are commonly believed to represent a potential for significant cost reductions. However, this presumes that these patients can be identified before the hospital stay. The present study aimed to investigate to what extent this is possible. METHODS: Consecutive admissions to a department of internal medicine were assessed by two expert panels. One panel predicted the appropriateness of the stays from the information available at admission, while final judgments of appropriateness were made after discharge by the other. RESULTS: The panels correctly classified 88% of the appropriate and 27% of the inappropriate admissions. If the elective admissions predicted to be inappropriate had been excluded, 9% of the costs would have been saved, and 5% of the gain in quality-adjusted life-years lost. The corresponding results for emergency admissions were 14% and 18%. CONCLUSIONS: The savings obtained by excluding admissions predicted to be inappropriate were small relative to the health losses. Programs for reducing inappropriate health care should not be implemented without investigating their effects on both health outcomes and costs.

The cost of inappropriate admissions: a study of health benefits and resource utilization in a department of internal medicine.

OBJECTIVES: High rates of inappropriate hospital admissions have been found in numerous studies, suggesting that a high percentage of hospital resources are, in effect, wasted. The degree to which this is true depends on how costly inappropriate admissions are compared to other admissions. This study aimed to estimate both the percentage and cost of inappropriate admissions. SETTING: Department of internal medicine at a teaching hospital. SUBJECTS: Consecutively admitted patients during a six-week study period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Assessments of inappropriateness were based on estimates of health benefit and necessary care level. These estimates were made by expert panels using a structured consensus method. Health benefit was estimated as gain in quality-adjusted life years, or degree of short-term improvement in quality of life during or shortly after the hospital stay. The direct costs to the hospital of each stay were estimated by allocating the costs of labour, 'hotel' and overhead according to length of stay and adding to this the cost of ancillary resources used by each individual patient. RESULTS: A total of 422 admissions were included. The 102 (24%) judged to be inappropriate had a lower mean cost (US$ 2532) than the other 320 (US$ 5800) (difference 3268; 95% confidence interval 1025-5511). The inappropriate admissions accounted for 12% of the total costs. CONCLUSIONS: Denying care for inappropriate admissions does not generate cost reductions of the same magnitude. Policy makers should be cautious in projecting the cost savings potential of excluding inappropriate admissions.

Does admission to a department of internal medicine improve patients' quality of life?

OBJECTIVES: The Tromsø Medical Department Health Benefit Study was designed to estimate health gains from admissions to a department of internal medicine. We have previously reported that the hospital stays had no effect on the life expectancy of 61% of the patients. However, it has been claimed that modern medicine has a greater effect on quality of life (QoL) than on life expectancy. The aim of the present study was to investigate this issue by estimating gains in QoL for patients admitted to a department of internal medicine. DESIGN: The time trade-off method (TTO) was used for assessing QoL gain from consecutive admissions during a 6-week period. The assessments were made by one of two expert panels, each consisting of an internist, a surgeon and a general practitioner, on the basis of summaries of all relevant clinical information about the patients. Short-term improvements in QoL during the stay or shortly after discharge were scored on an ordinal scale. RESULTS: Of the admitted patients, 41% had gains in QoL measured with the TTO (mean gain = 0.06; 95% confidence interval = 0.05-0.07; n = 422), and eight of these had gains equal to or greater than 0.50. Another 40% had gains in health-related short-term QoL measured with the ordinal scale. In a multivariate linear regression analysis, emergency admissions, high age and the disease categories 'endocrinological diseases' and 'pneumonia and influenza', were associated with higher gain, and 'undiagnosed symptoms' and 'cerebrovascular diseases' with lower gain. CONCLUSIONS: As judged by the expert panels, the investigated department of internal medicine was effective in improving the QoL of 81% of the admitted patients. Whilst most of the patients achieved small gains, a minority had gains in QoL corresponding to the treatment of life-threatening diseases.

Does admission to a medical department improve patient life expectancy?

Doubts about the effectiveness of medical care in improving patient health have been raised by epidemiological studies and by studies of geographical variation and inappropriate use of health care. To investigate this problem, the life expectancy gain (LEG) from consecutive admissions to a department of internal medicine during a six-week period was assessed by two expert panels, each consisting of an internist, a surgeon, and a general practitioner. The mean LEG for all admissions was 2.25 years (n = 422). Sixty-one percent had a LEG of 0.10 years or less, while 5% had a LEG of more than 9.98 years. In a probabilistic sensitivity analysis, the mean LEG remained greater than zero under assumptions of overestimated positive LEG and underestimated negative LEG. We conclude that the life expectancy of the majority of the patients was not influenced by the admission, but that a minority had substantial gains, resulting in a high overall mean LEG.

Assessing health benefit from hospitalization. Agreement between expert panels.

Agreement between two expert panels in assessing gain in life expectancy and quality of life from unselected stays in a department of internal medicine was investigated. Weighted kappa statistics of 0.45 for gain in life expectancy and 0.63 for gain in quality of life were found.

Renal angiography may be used primarily in the diagnosis of renovascular hypertension.

Three hundred and twenty consecutive patients with hypertension were referred to examination with intravenous urography. Only 2 of the 320 urograms performed showed abnormalities possibly related to hypertension. Renal angiography was performed in 39 (12%) of the patients. Seventeen (7%) subjects had renal artery stenosis, of whom 8 (2.5%) were referred to surgery. Four became normotensive and the other 4 had a more treatable hypertension. Urography is an expensive and insensitive method for evaluation of patients with hypertension and should be abandoned. Proper treatment of renovascular hypertension demands the performance of renal angiography. We therefore suggest a program for primary use of renal angiography in the examination of patients with suspected renovascular hypertension.

Intravenous urography in children and youth.

This report derives from Tromsoe in northern Norway. In a retrospective study of the indications for intravenous urography (IU) and the findings at IU in 740 patients (451 girls and 289 boys) aged 0-19 years, we found that urinary tract infections accounted for 69.4% of the IU in females 30.1% of the IU in males, most often seen in the youngest patients. The pathological findings most frequently seen were anomalies (17 females and 10 males) and urinary tract obstruction (3 females and 15 males). The present study indicates the following: first, that the yield of IU in the primary investigation of children and youth suffering from enuresis and non-specific abdominal disturbancies is small; and second, that the use of IU in children and youth with urinary tract infection and haematuria should be questioned and reconsidered.

A study on oedema mechanism in nephrotic syndrome.

Colloid osmotic pressure in plasma (COPp) and interstitial fluid (COPi), plasma volume (PV) and interstitial fluid volume (IFV) were measured in 14 patients with hypoproteinaemia due to glomerulonephritis and in five healthy controls. In controls, COPp averaged 24.2 mmHg and COPi 12.0 mmHg. In patients with COPp above 12 mmHg, COPi was reduced nearly identical to the fall in COPp. The transcapillary COP gradient (COPp-COPi) was maintained, and PV and IFV were unchanged. When COPp was reduced below 12 mmHg, the transcapillary COP gradient was decreased. Both IFV increased and renal fluid retention occurred. This study demonstrates the relationship between COPp, transcapillary fluid transport, and renal fluid retention in nephrotic syndrome.

Intravenous urography and voiding cystoureterography in northern Norway: a retrospective study.

Intravenous urography (IU) was performed in 489 patients aged 0-9 years during 1980-1983. A total of 35 (7.2%), 19 (13.1%) boys and 16 (4.7%) girls had pathological changes at IU. Of these, 11 boys and 5 girls had findings with therapeutic consequences. We have analysed the results of IU and voiding cystoureterography (VC) in 62 patients and show that a normal IU does not exclude vesicoureteral reflux into the renal pelvis. By performing only VC hydronephrosis, pyelonephritic scarring and anomalies may be missed.