Grant: Operating Grant

Pneumonia (serious infection of the lungs) is a common reason for hospitalization and in this day and age is still the 6th leading cause of death in Canada. Despite how common and costly it is, surprisingly little is known about pneumonia, especially regarding patients treated outside of the hospital. Furthermore, many people suspect that an episode of pneumonia might signal poor health and long term problems with illness and repeat episodes of pneumonia. Therefore, we created a cohort of 7000 patients with pneumonia treated between 2000 and 2002 in Alberta. We collected detailed information on all of these patients, including how sick they were, how much oxygen they needed, and how bad their pneumonia was - information not routinely available in regular administrative databases. We now propose following those patients for 5 years in a virtual fashion - by finding out what happened to them using provincial databases that record morbidity and mortality rates. Using advanced analytic techniques we will describe rates (and predictors) of death, repeat pneumonia, and hospitalizations over 5 years; explore the role of how strong and mobile someone is and how they do after pneumonia (their functional status); and figure out how important it is to have "enough" oxygen before going home with a bad pneumonia. Our study will be the largest and longest study of pneumonia patients that has ever been put together. The results will help doctors figure out who needs more attention after they go home with pneumonia and who is better off coming in to the hospital and most important help patients and policy-makers figure out who might need more help and attention down the road because they are at high risk of getting pneumonia again or even unnecessarily dying.