title: Within-year variation in hospital utilization and its implications for hospital costs.
abstract: Variability in demand for hospital services may have important effects on hospital costs, but this has been difficult to examine because data on within-year variations in hospital use have not been available for large samples of hospitals. We measure daily occupancy in California hospitals and examine variation in hospital utilization at the daily level. We find substantial day-to-day variation in hospital utilization, and noticeable differences between hospitals in the amount of day-to-day variation in utilization. We examine the impact of variation on hospital costs, showing that increases in variance are associated with increases in hospital expenditures, but that the effects are qualitatively modest.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University, HRP Redwood Building, Rm 253, Stanford, CA 94305-5405, USA. laurence.baker@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Laurence C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Bakera
authors.forename: Ciaran S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Phibbs
authors.forename: Cassandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guarino
authors.forename: Dylan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Supina
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Reynolds
mesh_terms: D001509:Bed Occupancy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D002140:California; D006273:Health Facility Merger; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000191:economics*; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D017059:Models, Econometric; D014481:United States; D014600:Utilization Review