Comprehensive approach to utilization review based on patient-specific costing data

The Ottawa General Hospital (OGH) is one of a growing number of institutions that has implemented a cost accounting system. The ability to track costs on a patient-specific basis provides an exciting avenue for reviewing the use of resources. With the accumulation of a complete fiscal year of data, the hospital recently embarked on a review process to identify opportunities for more detailed review with practitioners. This will support the OGH's surgical approach of targeting cuts, rather than making across-the-board reductions. The objective is to allow the hospital to maintain the highest levels of quality and service as the eroding funding situation allows. This paper describes the comprehensive approach taken by the review team to identify populations of patients that were relatively homogeneous and yet showed the greatest practice pattern variances between physicians. The method described provides a template for others to summarize large amounts of data and stratify patient groups for more detailed analysis of the patient care delivery process.