[Recommendations for the use of hospital statistics for hospital planning and management]

The trend towards DRGs (Diagnosis Related Groups) represents a major step in the development of hospital information systems. Based on the experience with the use of routine hospital data in the Swiss DRG project, this article presents recommendations in five areas: 1. Data collection and coding of medical routine data in hospitals 2. Continuous monitoring of the computer algorithm used to group diagnoses ("Grouper") 3. Methodology of calculating costs 4. Use of DRGs in planning and management; and finally 5. Strategies to implement these recommendations