Objective To examine long-term trends in hospital mortality, and length of stay of patients hospitalised with congestive heart failure (CHF).

Methods A retrospective study was performed in 7319 patients (4543 males, 2776 females) with a validated primary discharge diagnosis of HF hospitalised from 1 January 1993, through 31 December 2007. Hospital mortality, length of stay and were examined for patients.

Results During the 15-year period studied, the age of the patients with CHF showed an increase (p=0.000). The length of stay exhibited a downward trend (p=0.000) In-hospital 30-day mortality decreased from 7.0% in 1993–1997 to 4.5% in 1998–2002 to 5.1% in 2003–2007 (p=0.002). There was no significant difference in the gender of the patients with CHF. Hospital mortality of myocardial infarction and valve heart disease associated with CHF decreased deeply (p<0.01). Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed hospital mortality associated with the study period (1998–2002 vs 1993–1997, HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.93, p=0.013); (2003–2007 vs 1993–1997, HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.46 to 0.76, p<0.001).

Conclusion After risk adjustment for age, significant decrease in-hospital mortality was observed during the study period. This decline in-hospital mortality occurred in parallel with decreasing length of stay and increasing age of patients with HF.