title: Constructing episodes of care from encounter and claims data: some methodological issues.
abstract: There is growing agreement that episodes of care methodology provides the most effective means of analyzing health care delivery because it organizes health care services around the condition or illness for which they were prescribed. This paper presents a computerized approach for developing episodes of care from encounter and claims data and discusses some methodological issues. We found that we could group into five generic types of episodes of care the 31 illnesses that incur the majority of expenses for a health maintenance organization. This article describes the process for developing these types and summarizes the specific criteria defining the episodes of care for the 31 illnesses.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Health Services Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, USA.
authors.forename: T D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Wingert
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Kralewski
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Lindquist
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Knutson
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D017050:Episode of Care; D005249:Fees and Charges; D005260:Female; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007344:Insurance Claim Reporting / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D008910:Minnesota; D011247:Pregnancy; D012984:Software