Impact of Combination Therapy for HIV Infection on Inpatient Census

To the Editor: St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in New York is located in the Greenwich Village–Chelsea section of lower Manhattan, one of the areas with the highest density of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in the United States (3863 and 4744 cases of AIDS per 100,000 in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, respectively, in 1996). Over the past 10 years, the medical center has had annual increases in inpatient admissions and discharges, as well as increases in total days of inpatient care for HIV-related illnesses. Before the availability of protease-inhibitor therapy, the average daily inpatient census of patients with . . .