Emergency admissions – contacts per 1,000 inhabitants, 75 years and older
Nationally, the number of emergency admissions for the elderly increased from 140,000 in 2015 to approximately 175,000 in 2024, an increase of 25%. This increase is due to a growing elderly population. The admission rate has remained stable at around 360 - 370 emergency admissions per 1000 elderly throughout the period from 2015 to 2024.
The variation between catchment areas has also been stable and quite modest throughout the period. The catchment areas of Bergen and Lovisenberg stand out with slightly higher rates than the national average. The catchment areas of Telemar and Sørlandet have had rates slightly lower than 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 stable structural factors such as hospital capacity or the distribution of functions between hospitals and municipal health services.
Throughout the period from 2015 to 2024, there has been a modest change in gender distribution. In 2015, 55% of admissions were women, while in 2024, 51% of admissions were women.
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 three categories:
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.
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.
All of the data used in the charts for this analysis can be downloaded as a JSON file.
