Medical staff and hospital administration uses of discharge abstract data

In summary, this article suggests several useful approaches whereby physicians and hospital administrators can efficiently sort through large amounts of discharge abstract data to identify problem areas, particularly those concerning quality of care and utilization of services, and to formulate strategies for improvement. Approaches and steps suggested include: . Review objectives-determining variables of greatest concern; . Standards-determining acceptable values or levels of performance; . Focus of review-determining the unit of review, such as specific departments, diseases, or physicians; and . Quality and reliability of discharge abstract data-determining the data to use by undertaking four levels of edits: technical edits, logical edits, ratio edits, and categorical edits. A model flowchart provided in this article serves as a conceptual framework by which potential problem areas can be studied during a patient's hospitalization to precisely identify the interaction, the time, and the cause/association of the problem.