Emergency admissions

Nationally, the number of emergency admissions for the elderly increased from 140,200 in 2015 to approximately 180,800 in 2025, an increase of 29%. This increase is due to an expanding elderly population. The admission rate has remained stable at around 360 - 370 emergency admissions per 1000 elderly throughout the period from 2015 to 2025.

The variation between catchment areas has also been stable and relatively modest throughout the entire period. The catchment areas of Bergen and Lovisenberg stand out with slightly higher rates than the national average. The catchment areas of Telemark and Sørlandet have had rates slightly below the national average throughout the period.

The stability in geographical variation may indicate that the observed differences are either due to differences in morbidity or to stable structural factors, such as hospital capacity or the distribution of functions between hospitals and municipal health services.

The gender distribution among the elderly admitted as emergencies has changed over the period from 2015 to 2025, from a 55% share of women in 2015 to a 50% share in 2025.

Further analyses and projections of activity for the period 2024-2040 have been published as a separate report.

The analysis is based on activity data from the Norwegian Patient Register (NPR) for somatic specialist health services. The data includes activity in public hospitals and private hospitals that provide publicly funded services.

The sample consists of emergency inpatient contacts for patients aged 75 years or older. To avoid systematic bias resulting from routine transfers between hospitals, transfers have been taken into account. If the admission for one hospital stay occurs less than eight hours after the discharge from a previoys stay, the two hospital stays have been combined and counted as one.

The place of treatment is divided into two categories:

• Local public, treated at one of the hospitals in the catchment area
• Other public, treated at a public hospital outside the catchment area

In order to compare the catchment areas and between years, the rates have been adjusted for gender and age. The adjustment was done using the direct method with the countrys population in 2023 as the reference population.

In graphs with patient‑aggregated data, the numbers are adjusted to avoid double‑counting patients. The actual number of patients is therefore higher when looking at a single variable for a focus area. For example, patients who have received both private and public treatment during a year are counted only once in total, which means that the number of patients in private treatment will be underreported.

SKDE is solely responsible for the interpretation and presentation of the data provided by NPR. FHI/NPR is not responsible for analyses or interpretations based on the data.