Epidemiological Pattern of Diseases Requiring Hospitalization in Patients Attending Health Centers Participating in Tehran Health Insurance Organization Network in 2005-2014

Evaluation of the epidemiologic pattern of diseases requiring hospitalization is one of the effective factors in better management of hospitals, which can provide health managers and planners with a realistic and appropriate view on procuring the equipment and furnishing and equipping the hospitals in the country. This study was conducted to investigate this pattern based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) using the information recorded in Tehran Health Insurance Organization in a ten-year period.

In this descriptive research, we examined all records of hospitalized cases registered in the hospital information system of Tehran Health Insurance Organization during 2005 to 2014. The data of more than two million records, including case number, gender, and age of the patients as well as the diagnosis code were extracted from the hospital information system.

From 2008859 cases, 51.9% of patients were male and the mean age of the patients was 24.60±44.22 years. In children less than one year, “certain conditions originating in the perinatal period”, in children aged one to four years “symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified”, in children 5 to 14 years “neoplasm”, in patients 15 to 44 years “pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium”, and in patients above 45 years, “diseases of the circulatory system” were the most common diagnostic categories in hospitalized insured patients.

Due the specialization of diseases and various causes of hospitalization, to prevent wastage of financial and human resources, health policymakers and planners should allocate resources to insurance companies according to the scope of their activities