The French health care system is based on universal coverage by one of several health care insurance plans. The SNIIRAM database merges anonymous information of reimbursed claims from all these plans, linked to the national hospital-discharge summaries database system (PMSI) and the national death registry. It now covers 98.8% of the French population, over 66 million persons, from birth (or immigration) to death (or emigration), making it possibly the world's largest continuous homogeneous claims database. The database includes demographic data; health care encounters such as physician or paramedical visits, medicines, medical devices, and lab tests (without results); chronic medical conditions (ICD10 codes); hospitalisations with ICD10 codes for primary, linked and associated diagnoses, date and duration, procedures, diagnostic-related groups, and cost coding; date but currently not cause of death. The power of the database is correlatively great, and its representativeness is near perfect, since it essentially includes the whole country's population. The main difficulty in using the database, beyond its sheer size and complexity, is the administrative process necessary to access it. Recent legislative advances are making this easier. EGB (Echantillon Généraliste de Bénéficiaires) is the 1/97th random permanent representative sample of SNIIRAM, with planned 20-year longitudinal data (10 years at this time). Access time is 1 to 3 months, but its power is less (780 000 subjects). This is enough to study common issues with older drugs but may be limited for new products or rare events.

Background: Little is known about the epidemiology of acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) in patients admitted to intensive and coronary care units (ICU/CCU). Observational data may improve disease management and guide the design of clinical trials. Aims: EFICA is an observational study of the clinical profile, management and survival of ADHF patients admitted to ICU/CCU. Methods: The study included 599 patients admitted to 60 ICU/CCUs across France. Relevant data was recorded during hospitalisation. Survival was assessed at 4 weeks and 1 year. Results: The main cause of ADHF was ischaemic heart disease (61%); 29% of patients had cardiogenic shock. Mortality was 27.4% at 4 weeks and 46.5% at 1 year, increasing to 43.2% and 62.5%, respectively, when including pre-admission deaths. Shock patients had the highest [57.8% vs. 15.2% without shock ( p < 0.001)] and patients with hypertension and pulmonary oedema had the lowest 4-week mortality: (7%). Pre-admission NYHA class III -IV heart failure, not initial clinical presentation, influenced 1-year mortality. Conclusion: ADHF is a heterogeneous syndrome. Based on initial clinical presentation, three entities with distinct features and outcome may be described: cardiogenic shock, pulmonary oedema with hypertension, and Fdecompensated_ chronic heart failure. This should be taken into account in future observational studies, guidelines and clinical trials.

Isolation of Candida species appears to be an independent risk factor of mortality in nosocomial peritonitis but not in community-acquired peritonitis.