Heart Disease Ranks As Top Reason For Hospitalization

Heart disease was the top diagnosis for patients hospitalized in 2005, representing 4.2 million hospital discharges, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report is based on data from the 2005 National Hospital Discharge Survey. Other leading diagnoses were childbirth (4 million), psychoses (1.7 million), pneumonia (1.4 million), malignant neoplasms (1.2 million), and fractures (1 million). The average length of stay was 4.5 days for heart disease, 2.6 days for childbirth, 7.6 days for psychoses, 5.3 days for pneumonia, 6.8 days for malignant neoplasms and 5.3 days for fractures. Excluding newborns, an estimated 34.7 million inpatients were discharged from non-federal short-stay hospitals in the U.S. The rate of hospitalization for septicemia increased significantly among seniors from 2000-2005, from 61.7 per 10,000 people to 90.8 per 10,000, the report notes.