Knowledge about resource consumption and utilisation is vital in modern healthcare environments. In order to manage both human and material resources efficiently, a typical approach is to group the patients based on common characteristics. The most widely used approach is driven by the Case Mix funding formula, namely to classify patients according to diagnostic related groups (DRGs). Although ...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To examine and describe the relationship between age and disposition in patients undergoing mechanical ventilation. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of a statewide database. SETTING All acute-care hospitals in New York State. PATIENTS All patients (n=10,473) aged > or = 18 years discharged from hospital during 1993 with a final diagnosis related group (DRG) coding of 475. ...

Pediatric-modified diagnosis-related groups (PM-DRGs) were designed to describe more accurately than DRGs differences in severity of illness and charges across pediatric patients. We report on an evaluation of PM-DRGs for use in prospective payment systems (PPSs). Data on pediatric discharges (i.e., patients 17 years of age or under) from 5 States and a national sample of 43 hospitals were used...

AIMS Some previous studies have shown that Māori utilise cardiology inpatient services at a much lower rate than would be expected by their health status and mortality. Using more recent data, this study seeks to determine whether this is still the case by examining Māori rates of utilisation of cardiology inpatient services. METHODS Practice enrolment data for 354,383 patients, including age...

PURPOSE Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) are widely used for a variety of purposes including quality improvement, hospital output measurement and funding. DRGs are a patient classification scheme which provides a means of relating the type of patients a hospital treats (i.e., its casemix) to the costs incurred by the hospital. This is done by classifying patients into mutually exclusive groups b...

There are a number of Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) classification systems that have evolved over the past 2 decades, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. DRG systems are used for case-mix trending, utilization management and quality improvement, comparative reporting, prospective payment, and price negotiations. For any of these applications it is essential to know the accuracy with w...

Using a rat model the characteristics of the sensory neurones of the dorsal-root ganglia (DRG) innervating the hip were investigated by retrograde neurotransport and immunohistochemistry. Fluoro-Gold solution (FG) was injected into the left hip of ten rats. Seven days later the DRG from both sides between T12 and L6 were harvested. The number of FG-labelled calcitonin gene-related peptide-immun...

OBJECTIVE The aim of Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital (QEII) redesign project (QEII United) was to enhance timely access to an inpatient bed and maximise opportunities to value add during the inpatient episode of care. METHODS A tripartite relationship between the hospital team, system manager and external consultants. The team, QEII United, was formed to 'diagnose, solve and implement' ch...

Background At present, the diagnosis-related groups-based prospective payment system (DRG-PPS) that has been implemented in China is merely a prototype called the simplified DRG-PPS, which is known as the 'ceiling price for a single disease'. Given that studies on the effects of a simplified DRG-PPS in China have usually been controversial, we aim to synthesize evidence examining whether DRGs c...

This study was designed to quantitatively assess the impact of deficiencies in completeness and precision of hospital case cost data on cost weight compression. For the nursing per diem model versus the nursing workload model the average compression was 19.6 percent (for the 25.9 percent of cases that changed cost weight by at least 5 percent). We concluded that the compression of case mix cost...