Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Medical Care Research and Review
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (3)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hebert, P. L.
Right arrow Articles by Kane, R. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hebert, P. L.
Right arrow Articles by Kane, R. L.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Explaining Trends in Hospitalizations for Pneumonia and Influenza in the Elderly

Paul L. Hebert

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

A. Marshall McBean

Robert L. Kane

University of Minnesota

From 1987–99, influenza and pneumococcal vaccination rates among elderly Medicare beneficiaries increased by 300 percent and 500 percent, respectively. Despite these gains, annual rates of hospitalizations for pneumonia and influenza (P&I) have not decreased; rather, they have increased steadily. The authors investigate whether this paradoxical increase in hospitalization rates reflects an increasing burden of P&I or the effects of a changing healthcare environment. They find that from 1987–99, P&I hospitalizations per one thousand beneficiaries increased from 15.1 to 23.4. Of this increase, 23 percent was due to an aging Medicare population, 2.4 percent was due to increased rates of rehospitalization, and at most 5 percent was due to upcoding. There was no evidence that physicians were increasingly admitting patients with less complicated cases of P&I. The changing healthcare environment only partially explained the paradoxical increase in P&I hospitalizations. P&I appears to be an increasing burden to the elderly, despite increased vaccination rates.

Key Words: pneumonia • influenza • vaccination • trends • hospitalizations

Medical Care Research and Review, Vol. 62, No. 5, 560-582 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1077558705279310
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?