OBJECTIVES: OBJECTIVES: Although routinely collected data might have some biases compared to registries or medical trials, a health care financing agency is interested in these administrative data, because the financing of health care institutions is based on these “real word” data. The purpose of this study was to analyse the 1 year survival rate after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) according to the type of hospitals. METHODS: METHODS: Data derive from the database of the National Health Insurance Fund Administration (OEP), the only health care financing agency in Hungary, containing routinely collected financial data for the year 2004. Patients were selected with AMI diagnosis with the I21 and I22 codes of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), admitted to acute care hospitals in 2004. Statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS 14.0 for Windows. We created Kaplan-Meier survival curves and calculated chi-square values (Mantel-Cox log rank test). RESULTS: RESULTS: Altogether N=16,451 patients were included into the analysis. We found the highest survival rates at universities (80.5 %, N=2224) and national medical institutes (81.6 %, N=904). The city hospitals (71.7 %, N=5216), county hospitals (69.5 %, N=5221) and the hospitals of Budapest (68.1 %, N=2780) had similar survival rates. Some special hospitals had the lowest (56.6 %) survival rate, but the number of patients (N=106) was very low. The log rank test resulted in a chi-square value of 168.711 with 5 degree of freedom resulting in a significant difference (P<0.001). The average age of patients was the lowest at universities but the difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: CONCLUSIONS: The survival of patients depends on the type of hospital. We emphasize the role of large administrative databases in order to analyse “real word” data.