[DRGs in Europe]

DRG projects developments in Europe are shown since 1982 until 1989 being much similar in Western Europe different countries just as Prospective Payment System was implemented in the US International intergovernmental organizations like Council of Europe, OECD, WHO Europe and European Economic Community have supported and support the new system. Diagnostics and procedures coding was the main technical issue and European countries found different ways to cope with. How to use DRGs in Europe is still the main challenge. The European use is mainly in favour of internal management, planning, performance measurement but recently the most advanced projects have decided to relate partly hospital budget to case mix bases on DRGs as an incentive to greater efficiency.