Índice de internación ajustado por riesgo en hospitales públicos de Costa Rica

Abstract

A prolonged hospitalization constitutes an important hospital management problem. The purpose of this study is to calculate an index which identifies the hospitals with an inadequate hospitalization management. The hospitalization adequacy index is calculated by dividing the observed hospitalizations by the expected hospitalizations in each hospital. The latter are calculated with a regression model which takes into account the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients. We use the basis of hospitalization discharges of the public healthcare system in Costa Rica for 2014. 43% of the hospitals have an inadequate hospitalization management, as they record more hospitalization days than expected according to the corresponding case load. We conclude that the clinical-management information of the Costa Rican public healthcare allows us to estimate a hospitalization adequacy index as to identify hospitals with an inadequate hospitalization management.