TY - JOUR T1 - Use of mortality within 30 days of a COPD hospitalisation as a measure of COPD care in UK hospitals JF - Thorax JO - Thorax SP - 968 LP - 970 DO - 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2012-202365 VL - 68 IS - 10 AU - P P Walker AU - E Thompson AU - H Crone AU - G Flatt AU - K Holton AU - S L Hill AU - M G Pearson Y1 - 2013/10/01 UR - http://thorax.bmj.com/content/68/10/968.abstract N2 - Mortality rate has been proposed as a metric of hospital chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care in light of variation seen in national COPD audits. Using Hospital Episode Statistics (hospital ‘coding’) we examined 30-day mortality after COPD hospitalisation in 150 UK hospitals during 2006–2007 and 2007–2008. Mean and median 30-day mortalities were similar each year but the coefficient of variation was >20% and hospitals could change from a low or high quartile to the median by chance. We could not detect any reasons for hospitals being at the extremes. 30-day mortality after COPD hospitalisation is a complex variable and unlikely to be useful as a primary annual COPD metric. ER -