Burden of disease among inpatient urban and rural referrals in surgical and medical wards of Jinnah Hospital Lahore

ABSTRACT

Background: Hospital admission data can be a valuable tool for assessing the epidemiology of diseases within populations. With a minimum amount of data collection, substantial insight can be had into the types of diseases, the age at which conditions present, and their burden on inpatient service. And although these data are inevitably referral and access biased, they can provide useful information on morbidity in the community. Little is known about the surgical and medical diseases burden in tertiary care hospitals in Pakistan. Incomplete information has made it difficult to define an appropriate role for tertiary health care hospitals and the objectives of this research is to determine the referral profile of patients who are attending medical and allied OPD in Jinnah Hospital Lahore and compare disease burden from local and peripheral areas in surgical and medical units of Jinnah Hospital Lahore