title: The application of volume-outcome contouring in data warehousing.
abstract: Despite a compelling body of published research on the nature of provider volume and clinical outcomes, healthcare executives and policymakers have not managed to develop and implement systems that are useful in directing patients to higher volume providers via selective referral or avoidance. A specialized data warehouse application, utilizing hospital discharge data linked to physician biographical information, allows detailed analysis of physician and hospital volume and the resulting pattern (contour) of related outcomes such as mortality, complications, and medical errors. The approach utilizes a historical repository of hospital discharge data in which the outcomes of interest, important patient characteristics and risk factors used in severity-adjusting of the outcomes are derived from the coding structure of the data.
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Outcomes Research, Health Sciences Center, University of South Florida, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Studnicki
authors.forename: Donald J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Berndt
authors.forename: Stephen L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Luther
authors.forename: John W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Fisher
mesh_terms: D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States