Table 1 Hospital and patient characteristics of the study sample
Hospital characteristicsa | Â |
 Inpatient admissions (n) | 4048 |
 Hospital deaths n (%) | 2025 (50.0) |
 Type of hospital n (%) | |
  University hospital | 799 (19.7) |
  Tertiary teaching | 1642 (40.6) |
  General | 1607 (39.7) |
Patient characteristicsa,b | |
  Male sex % | 50.2 |
  Age (y), mean (SD) | 60.5 (20.9) |
  Charlson index of comorbidity % | |
   Score > =3 | 3.7 |
Admission characteristicsa,b | |
  Length of hospital stay (d), mean (SD/median) | 6.3 (14.6/3) |
  Urgently admitted patients % | 54.7 |
  Admission is a readmission % | 26.7 |
  Admission is followed by an unplanned readmission % | 17.7 |
 Hospital departments %, | |
  Surgery | 21.7 |
  Cardiology | 13.7 |
  Internal medicine | 18.7 |
  Orthopaedics | 11.2 |
  Neurology | 6.8 |
  Lung diseases | 6.9 |
  Ear, nose and throat | 3.6 |
  Urology | 4.9 |
  Other | 12.6 |
Presence of adverse eventsa,b | |
 One or more positive screening criteria in record n (%) | 2632 (44.7) |
 Adverse events n (%) | 390 (7.1) |
 Preventable adverse events n (%) | 108 (1.6) |