• Medical care · Oct 2014

    The ratchet effect: dramatic and sustained changes in health care utilization following admission to hospital with chronic disease.

    • David Whyatt, Raji Tenneti, Julie Marsh, Sarah E Bolt, Anna Kemp, Laura Firth, Kevin Murray, Berwin Turlach, and Alistair Vickery.
    • *School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences †School of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics ‡School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA §Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    • Med Care. 2014 Oct 1;52(10):901-8.

    ObjectiveTo describe the previously unexamined association between admissions to hospital with chronic disease and changes in all-cause health service utilization over time.Research DesignA cohort study examining the population of Western Australia with hospitalizations for chronic disease from 2002 to 2010. A "rolling" clearance period is used to define "cardinal events," that is, a disease-specific diagnosis upon hospital admission, where such an event has not occurred in the previous 2 years. Changes in the rate of cardinal events associated with diagnoses of heart failure, type 2 diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cataract with diabetes, asthma, and dialysis are examined. Health service utilization (defined as inpatient days or emergency department presentations) 6 years preceding and 4 years following such events is presented.ResultsCardinal events make up 40%-60% of all chronic disease admissions. A previously undescribed ratchet effect following cardinal events specifically associated with type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is observed. This involves a 2- to 3-fold increase in inpatient days and emergency department presentations that are sustained for at least 4 years.ConclusionsCardinal events represent an important reference point to understand the impact of chronic disease on health service utilization. Events that herald such a marked transition in health service demand have not been previously described.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…