OBJECTIVES

This study aims to describe the healthcare utilisation and inpatient mortality of patients hospitalised with pneumonia with or without COPD recorded in a prior hospitalisation.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database. All adults admitted to an English hospital with a primary diagnosis of Pneumonia (ICD-10 codes J12 Viral pneumonia, not elsewhere classified, J13 Pneumonia due to Streptococcus pneumoniae, J14 Pneumonia due to Haemophilus influenzae, J15 Bacterial pneumonia, not elsewhere classified, J16 Pneumonia due to other infectious organisms, not elsewhere classified, J17 Pneumonia in diseases classified elsewhere, J18 Pneumonia, organism unspecified.) between April 2019 and March 2020 with a prior hospitalisation in the preceding 36 months were included. Patients with a previous admission of COPD (ICD-10 code J44 Other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in any position were compared with patients who had an admission without COPD in any position in the same time period. The bed days per admission, cost per admission and inpatient mortality for the pneumonia admission was reported.

RESULTS

There were 191,275 patients with a pneumonia admission in the observational period, 34,915 with and 156,360 without a previous admission with COPD. The bed day utilisation was 9.1 Vs 7.9 days per admission, cost per admission was £4,134 Vs £3,356 and inpatient mortality was 22% Vs 11.8% for the with and without prior admission for COPD.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients hospitalised with Pneumonia with a previous admission of COPD are associated with increased admission length, cost and inpatient mortality. Further analytical research is required in matched populations to describe the relationship. This research has implications for mitigating the risk of pneumonia in patients with COPD given the disproportionate healthcare utilisation and mortality in this population.