Heart failure accounts for 1–3% of all hospital admissions in Europe and the USA Norway (2008) 1.1% Sweden (2011) 2.2% Netherlands (2010) 1.5% USA (2007) 2.9% Poland (2010) Lower Silesia region 1.5% England (2011–12) 0.4–2.5% Germany (2007) 2.0% Notes This map of Europe and North America gives hospitalizations for heart failure as a proportion of total hospitalizations. There is a consistent pattern, with 1 and 2% of all hospitalizations being related to heart failure, so this is a very important problem for health services. Data shown are for heart failure as a primary diagnosis and are probably an underestimate. Data for England is the range from primary diagnosis and any diagnosis of heart failure. References USA Hall MJ, DeFrances CJ, Williams SN, Golosinskiy A, Schwartzman A. National Hospital Discharge Survey: 2007 summary. Natl Health Stat Report 2010;29:1–24. Chen J, Dharmarajan K, Wang Y, Krumholz HM. National trends in heart failure hospital stay rates, 2001 to 2009. J Am Coll Cardiol 2013;61:1078–88. Norway Statistics Norway. StatBank database. 2013: Data available from: https://www.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/selectvarval/Define.asp?subjectcode=&ProductId=&MainTable=SomatSykehus &nvl=&PLanguage=1&nyTmpVar=true&CMSSub Sweden Socialstyrelsen. Statistikdatabas för diagnoser i sluten vård 1998–2011. 2013: Data available from: http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/statistik/statistikdatabas/diagnoserislutenvard (Accessed 21 October 2013). Netherlands Statistics Netherlands. StatLine database. 2012: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM =SLEN&PA=37852ENG&D1=38,58&D2=100- 111&LA=EN&VW=T (Accessed 21 November 2013). Poland Data supplied by regional health system representatives in Poland. Germany Neumann T, Biermann J, Erbel R et al. Heart failure: the commonest reason for hospital admission in Germany: medical and economic perspectives. Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009;106:269–75. Austria Statistik Austria. Jahrbuch der Gesundheitsstatistik 2011. Wien, 2012: https://www.statistik.at/dynamic/wcmsprod/idcplg?IdcService=GET_NATIVE_ReferencesReferences 49 FILE&dID=131915&dDocName=068646 (Accessed 21 October 2013). Switzerland Office fédéral de la statistique. Statistique médicale des hôpitaux 2011. 2013: Available from: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/14/04/01/data/01/05.html (Accessed 21 October 2013). Spain Sistema Nacional de Salud. National Minimum Database at Hospital Discharge [NMDHD]. 2013: Data available from: http://www.msssi.gob.es/estadEstudios/estadisticas/cmbd.htm (Accessed 21 October 2013). England Health and Social Care Information Centre. Hospital Episode Statistics: Admitted Patient Care 2011–12. Data available from: http://www. hscic.gov.uk/searchcatalogue (Accessed 21 October 2013). Switzerland (2011) 1.1% Spain (2011) 1.8% Austria (2010) 2.0%