The largest study to date of the use of acute care medical services by people with sickle cell disease found four of every 10 had to return to the hospital within 30 days of a previous hospitalization or go to the emergency department for treatment of pain.
Women accounted for nearly 60 percent of the 39.4 million admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2007. About 5 million of these hospital admissions were related to childbirth.
The amount that hospitals charge the uninsured for inpatient care grew by 88 percent between 1998 and 2007.
AHRQ has announced the start of "Healthcare 411 en Español," a new audio news series to provide Spanish speakers with consumer information about their health and health care. Spanish version of this article included.
The hospital costs for treating septicemia increased by an average of nearly 12 percent each year from 1997 to 2007, increasing from $4.1 billion in 1997 to $12.3 billion in 2007.
Heart patients who took a stomach acid-suppressing proton-pump inhibitor along with clopidogrel – a drug that prevents blood clots – were only half as likely to be hospitalized for upper digestive tract bleeding than those who used clopidogrel alone.
Purchases of cholesterol and diabetes prescription drugs by elderly Medicare beneficiaries reached nearly $19 billion in 2007 – about one-fourth of the approximately $82 billion spent for medications for the elderly.
Of the 8 million patients who were admitted to U.S. hospitals on weekends in 2007, approximately one-third received needed major procedures on the day of admission.
About 66 percent of the nearly 20 million state and local government employees were enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans in 2008, compared with 54 percent of private-sector workers.
Nearly 58 percent of the surgeries performed in hospitals were done as outpatient procedures.
Among the 36 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and older who needed to see a specialist in 2007, about 8 percent reported that getting to see one was a big problem.
About 3.5 million motor vehicle crash victims were treated in hospital emergency departments in 2006 for injuries ranging from scrapes and bruises to life-threatening trauma.
Medicare patients accounted for almost half of all stays (45 percent) at rural hospitals in 2007, while the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries who were admitted to urban hospitals was considerably lower (35 percent).
The number of Americans buying prescription drugs to treat digestive conditions climbed over 50 percent, rising from 18.1 million to 29 million people between 1997 and 2007.
Between 1996 and 2006, the average cost for prescription drugs for Americans age 18 to 44 doubled.
One of every three people who died in 2007 in the United States were in the hospital for treatment at the time of their deaths.
AHRQ analyzed the average annual dental expenditures in the 10 states with the highest populations in 2006.
Two medications commonly used to treat high blood pressure appear to be effective in treating a common type of heart disease known as stable ischemic heart disease.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the award of $17 million to fund projects to fight costly and dangerous health care-associated infections, or HAIs.
Total health care expenses for Americans age 45 to 64 in 2006 ($370 billion) were about double the inflation-adjusted total for 1996 ($187 billion).
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