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Although standardized treatment protocols promote shortened hospital stays for patients with pneumonia, debate continues over how to predict patient instability after hospital discharge. Investigators in Spain recently tackled this issue in a prospective, observational study involving 870 nonimmunocompromised adults who were admitted to their hospital for pneumonia between July 15, 2003, and June 30, 2006, and were discharged alive.
Participants had a mean age of 69.9; 71% were 65 or older. More than half had severe pneumonia (51.4% categorized as pneumonia severity index class IV or V; 58.8% with CURB-65 score ≥2). Mean length of stay was 4.4 days (median, 3.0 days); 51.2% of participants were hospitalized for ≤3 days. Rates of mortality an…