Socio-demographic patient profiles and hospital efficiency: does patient mix affect a hospital's ability to perform?

This study investigates whether inclusion of patient profiles impacts on the inferences drawn from measuring performance using patient level data. Performance is in this setting defined by resources used in treating patients in a given diagnose related group where use of resources is approximated by length of stay (LOS). The analysis is based on Danish registry data from 2006. Patient data include registry data on income, employment status and information on whether the patient receives benefits or lives alone. Considerable variation in the socio-demographic characteristics of patients across Danish hospitals was observed, and some patient characteristics were shown to drive the need for longer hospital stays beyond what is captured in DRG scores. Ranking of hospitals based on observed versus expected LOS remained largely unaffected when controlling for patient characteristics, suggesting that variation in LOS across hospitals is mainly driven by other factors than patients' socio-demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, the results of this study indicate that the current Danish remuneration system discriminates hospitals that more often serve older patients and patients with a less developed social network. These hospitals tend to have a reduced turnover of patients and their ability to generate revenue is therefore constrained.

Differences in general practice initiated expenditures across Danish local health authorities-A multilevel analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To assess differences in expenditures of general practice services across local health authorities (counties). METHODS: A multilevel analysis of 2123 general practices nested within 15 counties is used to assess between county variations in general practice expenditures in year 2006. Schmidt and Sickles' fixed effect efficiency estimator is used to assess the potential for reducing expenditures (fee-for-service, prescriptions, and referrals). RESULTS: Expenditures associated with general practice constitute 38% of total health care expenditures. 42% of the variation in these expenditures is attributable to geographical location (county). Mean efficiency is estimated to 87% corresponding to a savings potential of 700 DKK per insured person. Referrals to specialised care are the main source of variation in GP initiated expenditures across the counties. Expenditures associated with out-patient referrals and referrals to practicing specialist are negatively correlated (p<0.01) indicating a substitution effect. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that primary care reforms aiming at reducing GP initiated expenditures should focus on general practice access to low level specialised care rather than reforming GP remuneration systems.