Current and future hospitalization after heart attack.

OBJECTIVES

This article provides an overview of patients who were hospitalized in 1993/94 because of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and projects how many AMI patients there could be in the future.

DATA SOURCE

The Person-Oriented Information Data Base was used for this analysis.

ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES

Hospital inpatients who had a primary diagnosis of AMI were analyzed, as well as their subsequent hospitalizations for coronary heart disease in the fiscal year. The age-sex specific hospitalization rates were used with population projections to estimate future hospital use.

MAIN RESULTS

Of the nearly 45,000 Canadians who were discharged from hospital in 1993/94 with a primary diagnosis of AMI, most (72%) had only one hospital stay within the fiscal year, but 18% had two related stays, and 10% had three or more. AMI patients were hospitalized an average of 14.6 days. The projected number of AMI patients and the number of hospital days used will increase by approximately 36% each decade to the year 2026.