Research article
Simplicity within complexity: Seasonality and predictability of hospital admissions in the province of Ontario 1988–2001, a population-based analysis
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* Corresponding author: Ross EG Upshur rupshur@idirect.com
1 Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, 263 McCaul Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1W7, Canada
2 Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, McMurrich Building, 12 Queen's Park Crescent W., Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
3 Primary Care Research Unit, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Ave., #E-349, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada
4 Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada
5 Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, 19 Russell Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2S2, Canada
BMC Health Services Research 2005, 5:13 doi:10.1186/1472-6963-5-13
Published: 4 February 2005Abstract
Background
Seasonality is a common feature of communicable diseases. Less well understood is whether seasonal patterns occur for non-communicable diseases. The overall effect of seasonal fluctuations on hospital admissions has not been systematically evaluated.
Methods
This study employed time series methods on a population based retrospective cohort of for the fifty two most common causes of hospital admissions in the province of Ontario from 1988–2001. Seasonal patterns were assessed by spectral analysis and autoregressive methods. Predictive models were fit with regression techniques.
Results
The results show that 33 of the 52 most common admission diagnoses are moderately or strongly seasonal in occurrence; 96.5% of the predicted values were within the 95% confidence interval, with 37 series having all values within the 95% confidence interval.
Conclusion
The study shows that hospital admissions have systematic patterns that can be understood and predicted with reasonable accuracy. These findings have implications for understanding disease etiology and health care policy and planning.