In hospital mortality, Cost and Length of stay
In-hospital mortality was defined as death from any cause during the same hospital stay. LOS was already provided by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) for each entry. Disposition to another facility included transfer to skilled nursing facility, intermediate care facility, and nursing homes. The HCUP NIS contains data on total charges for each hospital in the databases, which represents the amount that hospitals billed for services. To calculate estimated cost of hospitalizations, the NIS data were merged with Cost to Charge Ratios (CCR) available from HCUP18, 19. Using the merged data elements from the CCR files and the total charges reported in the NIS database, we converted the hospital total charge data to cost estimates by simply multiplying total charges with the appropriate CCR. These costs are essentially standardized, can be measured across hospitals, and are used for the remainder of this report. Adjusted annual costs were calculated in terms of the 2013 cost, after adjusting for inflation according to the latest consumer price index data released by the US government on February 15, 201720.