Both cases and controls are limited to individuals born in Denmark who were alive on or born after January 1st, 1981 (the beginning date for hospitalization data availability), lived (at least for some time) in Denmark between 1981 and 2004, and have complete information on the study variables.
We required one-year residency in the study region before the index hospitalization to ensure availability of data on previous laboratory measurements from the laboratory database.
We suspect that the two types of hospitals differ in regard to criteria for admission (such as severity of disease), ability of the family to afford hospitalization, or bed availability.
A prerequisite for prospective syndrome surveillance is the real-time availability of hospitalization data, including clinical diagnoses and symptoms by date of hospitalization.
The epidemiological analysis of blunt spleen injury was feasible due to the availability of hospitalization healthcare database, because almost all patients with blunt spleen injury in Taiwan are hospitalized to receive treatment.
Taking the Roemer effect into account (hospitalization depends on bed availability more than on severity of illness) [ 31], higher rates of restraint and constraint could be due to greater availability of acute beds in the system and not to lower quality of acute care.
The reduction in ACS hospitalization rates among older adults in counties with RHCs was small, but consistent with previous research linking CHC/RHC availability to reduced hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries.
The strengths of our study include the use of population-based, nationwide cohorts with inclusion of all adults receiving RRT (transplant recipients, and patients receiving hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis) in an entire country, minimal loss to follow-up, and the availability of comprehensive hospitalization data and microbiological data on each SAB case.
Outcome data were categorized in terms of availability of mortality, survival, hospitalization, or complications data.
Using similar methodology, Prior et al. failed to detect an impact of increased acetaminophen availability on rates of hospitalization for overdose or acute liver toxicity in Canada [ 11].
