Health trends
-
Comparative Study
A comparison of diagnosis related groups and ambulatory visit groups in day-case surgery.
Case-mix measurement is a basic requirement of clinical and resource management systems within health care organisations, and offers a potentially useful tool for the setting and monitoring of contracts. Ambulatory care has particular problems in the construction of appropriate case-mix measures, and day-case surgery provides an opportunity to test two existing measures, one inpatient (Diagnosis Related Groups) and one ambulatory (Ambulatory Visit Groups). ⋯ However, Diagnosis Related Groups are more developed, easier to use, more familiar and allow direct comparisons with inpatient care. Nevertheless, a proper evaluation of these issues requires further data collection and analysis, together with a fundamental examination of the uses of ambulatory case-mix.
-
The findings of a comparative study of cost awareness amongst particular groups of health service staff are reported. The study is a repeat of that undertaken in 1987 by Fairbrass and Chaffe. The findings are compared to assess how awareness of the cost of anaesthetic drugs, fluids and disposables has changed as a result of the publicity since 1987. ⋯ Overall the tendency was to overestimate costs, whilst a small number of expensive items such as volatile agents were consistently underpriced. The results show that, over the last three years, there has been no significant change in the knowledge of cost awareness. At a time when the effective use of scarce resources is being emphasised, a staff programme of continuing cost awareness training is recommended.