Hospital Discharge Statistics

Abstract

A leading article in the Lancet (1835–6) drew attention to the failure of London hospitals and public medical charities to publish statistics about the patients treated in these institutions. This was contrasted with the production of such information by hospitals abroad. A few years later the Lancet (1841) pointed out that the collection of data regarding hospital in-patients had been advocated as long ago as 1732. In the 1840s, the vital statistics committee of the Council of the Statistical Society had taken steps for the collection of data relating to hospital patients. Limited progress was made; data were published from nine hospitals in London (Statistical Society, 1842). There was a further report 2 years later (Statistical Society, 1844). By 1861, 14 hospitals were participating in the collection of uniform statistics, and shortly after a number of provincial hospitals began to collaborate, although this trend was soon to wane (Statistical Society, 1866). A very careful discussion of collecting and interpreting hospital statistics was provided by Bristowe and Holmes (1863); this included comments on the problems of using case-fatality rates and an index of ‘unsuccess in medical treatment’. Somewhat more optimistic proposals were made by Florence Nightingale (1863): her Notes for Hospitals suggested the collection of an extended range of particulars for hospital in- and outpatients. Farr (1875) advocated an even greater extension of data collection.