Impacto de la inmigración sobre la asistencia hospitalaria: frecuentación, casuística y repercusión económica

objectives: to identify the impact of immigration on health services by comparing hospital discharges, case-mix, and economic effects between immigrants and the native population. methods: we performed a retrospective longitudinal study of acute-care hospital admissions in murcia (spain) registered in the minimum data set from 2004-2005. the groups to be compared, established on the basis of country of birth, were ？spain？, ？europe-25？ and ？remaining countries？. diagnoses were codified using the ice-9-cm and were grouped by means of the all patient-diagnosis related groups (ap-drg) version 18. utilization rates were calculated by the time of medical insurance. economic effects were calculated through drg weights for 2004. results: there were 196,275 discharges, with 2,590,376 person-years of insurance. the frequency of discharges was 75.8‰ among spaniards, 64.3‰ among immigrants from europe-25 and 73.8‰ among immigrants from the remaining countries. the most frequent causes of admission were related to pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium. cost per admission was 3,529 € in spaniards, 3,231 € in persons from europe-25 and 2,423 € in persons from the remaining countries. the average cost per year of insurance was 263 € for spaniards, 217 € for immigrants from europe-25 and 219 € for those from the remaining countries. conclusions: hospital utilization and costs per admission and for person-year of insurance are higher in spaniards than in immigrants, especially the group from ？the remaining countries？. in this group, case-mix is also different.