Physician Practice Patterns Within an Acute Care Facility.
Abstract
This thesis presented a hypothesis that hospital cost reduction is possible in a case-based prospective payment environment by improving clinical productivity through changing the volume and mix of imput intermediate products. Potentially inappropriate intermediate product use can be identified through comparisons of different practice patterns that reflect how the intermediate products were combined to produce an inpatient episode of care. However, rather than investigating gross variation in intermediate product use, the variation must be differentiated into its two major components -- patient and physician. Variation in the volume and type of input intermediate products resulting from differences in physician practice styles is probably inappropriate. Before considering implementation of this cost reduction strategy, however, it had to be demonstrated that 1) practice patterns could be identified, 2) the different patterns could be associated with patient, physician, and outcome characteristics, and 3) individual physicians could be associated with the different patterns. The demonstration of the capability to accomplish these tasks was the major thrust of the research effort reported here. The current research had demonstrated that physician-associated practice pattern differences do exist within the demonstration hospital. Therefore, it is concluded that a cost reduction strategy based on improving clinical productivities through modification of inappropriate physician practice styles is feasible.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA166328
Entities
People
- Timothy C. Mckee
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology