title: The identifier concept: clinical parameters to stratify hospital patient costs within gynecology diagnosis-related groups.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to analyze whether clinical variables could stratify hospital costs within gynecology diagnosis-related groups. We analyzed 3171 gynecologic admissions to a large teaching hospital and found that the parameters of nonemergency and intensive care unit admission and blood or plasma product utilization could stratify hospital costs and outcome within a gynecology diagnosis-related group. Patients with the variables had higher total hospital costs, a longer hospital length of stay, more procedures per patient, a greater proportion of outliers, and a higher mortality than patients without the variables. This study demonstrates that these four clinical variables could be used to focus cost-containment efforts on gynecologic patients incurring higher costs in the coming era of limited resources.
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000191:economics; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000191:economics; D005260:Female; D005831:Genital Diseases, Female / Q000191:economics*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000191:economics; D010949:Plasma