Annual trends in incidence of admissions for pneumonia and other related diagnoses (to Acute General Medicine and related specialties)
| Initial % change per year (95% CI) | Year of rate-change* | Subsequent % change per year (95% CI) | Direction of change† | Estimate in 2014‡ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pneumonia admissions | |||||
| Unadjusted | 4.2 (3.6 to 4.8) | 2008 | 8.8 (7.8 to 9.7) | ↑ ↑ | 1668 |
| Standardised for age, sex and population size | 2.0 (1.4 to 2.6) | 2008 | 5.1 (4.2 to 6.1) | ↑ ↑ | n/a |
| Excluding readmissions in same (financial) year | 4.1 (3.5 to 4.7) | 2008 | 8.2 (7.2 to 9.1) | ↑ ↑ | 1528 |
| Excluding readmissions at any later date | 3.0 (2.3 to 3.7) | 2007 | 6.9 (6.1 to 7.8) | ↑ ↑ | 1318 |
| Excluding those discharged from our hospitals in the previous 14 days | 3.6 (3.0 to 4.3) | 2008 | 8.4 (7.5 to 9.4) | ↑ ↑ | 1425 |
| Possible alternative diagnoses | |||||
| COPD | 5.5 (4.6 to 6.5) | 2005 | 1.9 (1.3 to 2.5) | ↑ ↑ | 1076 |
| Other lower respiratory tract infections | 9.1 (8.2 to 10.0) | 2007 | 2.9 (2.0 to 3.9) | ↑ ↑ | 885 |
| Sepsis | 4.4 (3.1 to 5.6) | 2011 | 13.5 (8.0 to 19.3) | ↑ ↑ | 217 |
| Non-specific viral infection | 2.8 (1.3 to 4.2) | 2010 | 8.7 (4.2 to 13.3) | ↑ ↑ | 156 |
| All pneumonia-like diagnoses | 5.7 (5.1 to 6.2) | 2005 | 4.6 (4.3 to 5.0) | ↑ ↑ | 3926 |
| Other common infections | |||||
| Lower urinary tract infections | 9.5 (9.0 to 10.0) | 2012 | −0.6 (−3.9 to 2.7) | ↑ ↔ | 1067 |
| Skin and soft tissue infections | 6.5 (5.1 to 7.9) | 2005 | 0.7 (−0.2 to 1.6) | ↑ ↔ | 502 |
| Upper respiratory tract infections | 3.9 (2.8 to 5.0) | – | ↑ | 115 | |
| Gastroenteritis | 10.1 (8.7 to 11.4) | 2011 | 45.4 (40.0 to 51.0) | ↑ ↑ | 564 |
| Overall admissions | |||||
| All admissions | 6.2 (6.0 to 6.4) | 2006 | 1.6 (1.5 to 1.8) | ↑ ↑ | 29 438 |
| All infections (excluding pneumonia) | 7.1 (6.6 to 7.6) | 2006 | 5.7 (5.3 to 6.1) | ↑ ↑ | 4601 |
| All non-infections | 6.2 (6.1 to 6.4) | 2006 | 0.7 (0.5 to 0.8) | ↑ ↑ | 23 274 |
All trends modelled using piecewise linear Poisson regression. See Methods for included specialties.
*Allowing change in trend over time if significant improvement over linear trend alone (p<0.05), with year of the change point chosen by profile likelihood8 (see Methods).
†Single arrows represent direction of change over the whole time period; paired arrows represent direction and relative size of change in the periods before and after the year when data suggested trend in rates changed (as in *).
‡Number of admissions, as estimated by the best-fitting model as presented in the table.