Inpatient Hospital Stays and Emergency Department Visits Involving Influenza, 2006-2016 #253

Inpatient Hospital Stays and Emergency Department Visits Involving Influenza, 2006-2016 #253

Inpatient Hospital Stays and Emergency Department Visits Involving Influenza, 2006-2016

Kathryn R. Fingar, Ph.D., M.P.H., Lan Liang, Ph.D., and Carol Stocks, Ph.D., R.N

Highlights

Over a 10-year period, the 2014-2015 flu season appeared to be more severe than other flu seasons, resulting in the most inpatient stays (223,300) and deaths (3.4 percent of stays). The 2009-2010 and 2014-2015 flu seasons resulted in more treat-and-release emergency department (ED) visits than did other seasons (over 800,000). During four high-volume flu seasons examined in more detail, over 40 percent of influenza-related ED visits had Medicaid as the expected payer. Rates of influenza-related stays and ED visits were highest for patients from low-income areas. This disparity was greatest for young children: for children aged 0-4 years, the rate of influenza-related ED visits in 2015-2016 was 220 percent higher in the lowest than in the highest income areas. Females had higher rates of influenza-related stays and ED visits than did males. Yet, hospital stays for males were costlier and more likely to result in in-hospital death (2015-2016: mean cost, $17,300 vs. $14,900; in-hospital mortality, 3.9 vs. 3.2 percent). In 2015-2016, the in-hospital mortality rate for stays involving influenza was as high as 8.7 percent among patients with cancer and 6.4 percent among patients with heart or cerebrovascular disease. Patients with these conditions without influenza had in-hospital mortality rates of 5.3 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively.