PMID- 9005161
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 19970128
LR  - 20061115
IS  - 0046-5968 (Print)
IS  - 0046-5968 (Linking)
VI  - 26
IP  - 10
DP  - 1996 Oct
TI  - [Recovery evaluation in a pediatric heart surgery unit using the AP-DRG 
      classification system (All Patient Diagnosis Related Groups)].
PG  - 1157-74
AB  - The evaluation of Health Care activities, particularly of those concerning 
      hospitals, is one of the most important aims for the National Health Service for 
      a "fair" resource allocation. In the recent past a great bulk of research has 
      been directed to methods for patient classifications in relation to resource 
      needs. Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) is one of the most important patient 
      classification systems related to resource allocation which has been developed in 
      the U.S. Medicare Program (HCFA-DRGs) during the eighties and more recently 
      adopted all over Europe, Italy included. Wide experimentation has been developed 
      during the recent past concerning DRGs confirming its validity, but also has 
      disclosed its limits, mostly concerning applicability outside U.S., 
      identification of specific patient subgroups (like the pediatric patient 
      population) and capability in distinguishing patients with apparently similar 
      resource needs, but different clinical severity conditions. In order to overcome 
      such limits, DRGs have been subjected to some important modification: All patient 
      DRG (AP-DRG) is a system which should pay more attention to some patient 
      subgroups, such as the pediatric one. Research is still looking for methods, 
      easily extensible to the whole hospital informative system concerning the 
      possibility of distinguishing patients with different level of severity 
      condition. With the double aim of experiment the actual utility in the use of 
      AP-DRG, more than HCFA-DRG in a pediatric population and find further indexes for 
      complexity and/or severity characterization of the hospital case-mix, the 1992 
      in-patients hospital files of the pediatric cardiosurgery hospital CREAS-IFC-CNR 
      was reviewed. Results confirm that some increase in the identification of the 
      case-mix do occur by using the AP-DRG system, even if a better clinical 
      characterization could be possible (i.e. AP-DRG 108). Of particular interest is 
      the fact that descriptive statistical analysis of position and variability 
      parameters do confirm the importance of the length of stay as a brief index for 
      hospital efficiency evaluation and its organizative model characterization.
FAU - Giuliano, G
AU  - Giuliano G
AD  - U.O. di Tecnica e Organizzazione Ospedaliera, Reparto di Epidemiologia e 
      Biostatistica, Azienda Creas-IFC-CNR, Pisa.
FAU - Catalano, S
AU  - Catalano S
FAU - Baldacci, S
AU  - Baldacci S
FAU - Capuani, A
AU  - Capuani A
FAU - Donato, L
AU  - Donato L
LA  - ita
PT  - English Abstract
PT  - Journal Article
TT  - Valutazione dell'attivita di ricovero in cardiochirurgia pediatrica mediante il 
      sistema di classificazione AP-DRG (All Patient Diagnosis Related Groups).
PL  - Italy
TA  - G Ital Cardiol
JT  - Giornale italiano di cardiologia
JID - 1270331
SB  - IM
MH  - Adolescent
MH  - *Cardiac Surgical Procedures
MH  - Child
MH  - Child, Preschool
MH  - *Diagnosis-Related Groups
MH  - Female
MH  - Heart Defects, Congenital/surgery
MH  - Humans
MH  - Infant
MH  - Infant, Newborn
MH  - Italy
MH  - Length of Stay
MH  - Male
MH  - *Pediatrics
MH  - Severity of Illness Index
EDAT- 1996/10/01 00:00
MHDA- 1996/10/01 00:01
CRDT- 1996/10/01 00:00
PHST- 1996/10/01 00:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 1996/10/01 00:01 [medline]
PHST- 1996/10/01 00:00 [entrez]
PST - ppublish
SO  - G Ital Cardiol. 1996 Oct;26(10):1157-74.