Interpreting hospital death rates

Abstract
# Can be difficult {#article-title-2} EDITOR,—We agree that hospital death rates for myocardial infarction can be difficult to interpret.1 In a guide to hospital statistics and their interpretation we reported hospital death rates in Oxford, which ranged from 8% (27/341) to 73% (73/100).2 The hospitals were anonymised because our code of practice is not to identify individual hospitals in publications.2 The hospital with a death rate of 8% admitted only convalescent medical patients: its statistics were selectively based on survivors. The hospital with a death rate of 73% was a geriatric hospital: many of its patients were admitted, with conditions …