Use of severity-adjusted length of stay to modify physician practice patterns.

P. A. Gross, P. E. Yost-Cataruozolo, P. DeMauro, L. Passaglia, P. Eason, B. Hopkins, M. Fiallo, S. Wallenstein, J. Levine, J. Boscamp

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare inpatient length of stay among physicians by testing a new method for severity adjusting length of stay. DESIGN: A retrospective validation study with prospective follow-up after an intervention. SETTING: A 531-bed community teaching hospital. PATIENTS: Three hundred randomly selected patients from the 30,861 patients discharged in 1990. INTERVENTION: A physician with a significantly prolonged severity-adjusted length of stay was counseled and then monitored for three months. RESULTS: The correlation between the number of comorbidities, complications, and manifestations of disease processes (CCMDPs) was R2 = 0.658, t = 23.96 (p = .001). One physician had an unusually high severity-adjusted length of stay, but lowered it after he was counseled and monitored for three months. CONCLUSIONS: The number of CCMDPs recorded on the hospital discharge abstract can be used as a severity index to adjust a patient's length of stay for illness severity. Using linear regression analysis, a picture of the severity-adjusted length of stay can be derived for physicians. Through counseling and monitoring, individual physicians' lengths of stay patterns may be reduced.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)23-28
Number of pages6
JournalClinical performance and quality health care
Volume1
Issue number1
StatePublished - 1993
Externally publishedYes

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