Gaceta sanitaria
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Regional differences in hospital utilization have been long recognized. The objective of this study is to find out differences in hospital utilization and structure between Madrid and Catalonia. ⋯ We obtained the located and allocated beds, and the distribution of discharges by payers and of beds by providers for both regions, Catalonia shows consistently higher discharge rates (40% of public beds and 3.70 used beds) and Madrid has longer hospital stays (70% of public beds and 3.98 used beds). This work allows to formulate two questions about how health services operate: 1) organizational aspects could affect medical behavior. 2) hospital bed days could depend more on discharge rates than on length of stay.