Analysing low-risk patient populations allows better discrimination between high-performing and low-performing hospitals: a case study using inhospital mortality from acute myocardial infarction

Coory, Michael and Scott, Ian (2007) Analysing low-risk patient populations allows better discrimination between high-performing and low-performing hospitals: a case study using inhospital mortality from acute myocardial infarction. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 16 5: 324-328.


Author Coory, Michael
Scott, Ian
Title Analysing low-risk patient populations allows better discrimination between high-performing and low-performing hospitals: a case study using inhospital mortality from acute myocardial infarction
Journal name Quality and Safety in Health Care  (ERA 2012 Listed)    (ERA 2010 Rank C)   Check publisher's open access policy
Publication date 2007-10
Sub-type Article
DOI 10.1136/qshc.2006.018457
Volume number 16
Issue number 5
ISSN 1475-3898
Start page 324
End page 328
Total pages 5
Editor David P. Stevens
Place of publication United Kingdom
Publisher BMJ Publishing Group
Collection year 2008
Language eng
Subject 321299 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
730299 Public health not elsewhere classified
Formatted abstract Objective: To assess whether performance indicators based on administrative hospital data can be rendered more useful by stratifying them according to risk status of the patient.

Design: Retrospective analysis of 10 years of administrative hospital data for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Four risk groups defined by cross-classifying patient age (<75 years, 75+ years) against the presence or otherwise of at least one risk condition that predicted short-term AMI mortality.

Setting: 17 public hospitals in Queensland, Australia, with more than 50 AMI admissions annually.

Participants: 21 537 patients admitted through the emergency department and subsequently diagnosed as having AMI.

Main outcome measure: Systematic variation in standardised case fatality ratios. Systematic variation is the variation across hospitals after accounting for the Poisson variation in the number of deaths at each hospital. It was obtained from an empirical-Bayes model. Case fatality ratios were standardised according to the age, sex and risk factor profile of the patient.

Results: Systematic variation decreased monotonically across the four risk groups as case fatality increased (likelihood ratio test: χ2 = 8.08, df = 1, p = 0.004). Systematic variation was largest and statistically significant (0.375; 95% CI 0.144 to 0.606) for low-risk patients (<75 years with no risk conditions; case fatality rate = 2.0%) but was smallest (0.126; 0.039 to 0.212) for high-risk patients (75+ years with at least one risk condition; case fatality rate = 24.3%).

Conclusion: Analysis of data from high-risk patients with AMI provides little opportunity to identify better-performing hospitals because there is relatively little variation across hospitals. In such patients, older age and comorbid illness are probably more important than quality of care in determining outcomes. In contrast, for low-risk patients the systematic variation was large suggesting that outcomes for such patients are more sensitive to clinical error. Analysing data for low-risk patients maximises our ability to identify best-performing hospitals and learn from their processes and structures to effect system-wide changes that will benefit all patients.
Keyword AMI, acute myocardial infarction
GLLAMM, generalised latent and mixed models
SCFR, standardised case fatality ratio
Q-Index Code C1
Institutional Status UQ

 
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Created: Fri, 28 Mar 2008, 16:42:30 EST