Fig. 1

In-hospital mortality rates for septicemia, respiratory failure, and acute heart failure. Acute coronary syndrome included as an example of a critical care cardiovascular condition where reductions in in-hospital mortality have been realized. Rates are per 100 discharges for acute coronary syndrome, septicemia, and respiratory failure and were extracted from National Hospital Discharge Survey [66–68]. Rates for acute heart failure were based on published registry data [69] and represent percent of patients in the registries who died in the hospital. Data shown are from ADHERE [70] and OPTIMIZE [71] (2000), EHFS II (2004) [72], ALARM (2007) [73], AHEAD (2010) [74], and ATTEND (2011) [75]. The acute heart failure data should be interpreted considering the differences in registry populations and severity of illness