AHRQ Stats: Hospital Stays For Kidney Failure Most Common in South

Patients living in the South had the highest rate of hospital stays for acute kidney failure in 2014. The rate – 182 stays per 100,000 people – increased 66 percent since 2005. (Source: AHRQ, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #231: Acute Renal Failure Hospitalizations, 2005-2014.)

November 2017

Acute Renal Failure Hospitalizations, 2005-2014

Brian J. Moore, Ph.D., and Celeste M. Torio, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Highlights

In 2014, hospital stays with a principal diagnosis of acute renal failure accounted for 1.4 percent of all hospitalizations; 10.5 percent of all hospitalizations had an all-listed diagnosis of acute renal failure.

The rate of inpatient stays with a secondary diagnosis of acute renal failure increased nearly threefold from 2005 to 2014 (from 350.2 to 1,011.5 stays per 100,000 population).

Medicare accounted for 69.4 percent of the 504,600 stays with a principal diagnosis of acute renal failure and 68.6 percent of the $4.6 billion in aggregate costs associated with those stays in 2014.

Between 2005 and 2014, the rate of stays with a principal diagnosis of acute renal failure increased the most among patients aged 18-44 and 45-64 years, as well as among those living in the lowest income areas. Patients living in the South and Midwest had the highest rate of stays for acute renal failure in 2005 and 2014.

Septicemia was the most frequent principal diagnosis and blood transfusion was the most common procedure among stays with an all-listed acute renal failure diagnosis in 2014.