Medicare hospital utilization review for ischemic cerebrovascular disease

Results of a computerized screening of stroke patients for unjustified hospital stay

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Effective methods to monitor length of stay can help reduce unnecessary hospital stay without adversely affecting the quality of care. In this study a clinical algorithm for assessing unjustified hospital stay in stroke patients was computerized and tested.

METHODS

An algorithm was developed by the authors to estimate the number of medically justified and unjustified hospital days for patients admitted with a primary diagnosis of ischemic stroke. Data for the algorithm were obtained from 177 stroke patients from an acute-care teaching hospital. The performance of the algorithm was evaluated on a subset of 46 patients by comparing the number of medically unjustified hospital days determined by the algorithm with the consensus determination of two neurologists.

RESULTS

The algorithm classified 68% of the 177 patients as having some unjustified hospital days and 41% of all hospital days as unjustified. With the neurologists as the gold standard, the sensitivity of the algorithm was .89 and the specificity was .91. The correlation between the number of unjustified days determined by the algorithm and the neurologists was .76.

CONCLUSIONS

There is considerable unjustified length of stay for stroke patients. Physicians can develop simple clinical algorithms for detecting unjustified hospital stay in stroke patients that provide a reasonable approximation of complex clinical judgment.

A public/private partnership in the quest for quality: development of cerebrovascular disease practice guidelines and review criteria

The development of Uniform Clinical Data Set (UCDS) algorithms for cerebrovascular disease can serve as a model for cooperation between government agencies and physician organizations in the development of clinical guidelines and the translation of practice guidelines into review criteria. UCDS is a computerized system of data collection and case finding developed by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to standardize the Peer Review Organization screening process for potential utilization and quality problems. Input on the cerebrovascular disease algorithms was provided through the American Medical Association UCDS Advisory Panel and the American Academy of Neurology Task Force on Hospital Utilization for Stroke. Physician organizations were successful in identifying problematic areas, improving the original algorithms, suggesting new issues for development, and deleting inappropriate or misdirected algorithms. Since HCFA modified the cerebrovascular disease algorithms in response to feedback, physician organizations have had an important impact on algorithm development. Unfortunately, the process for algorithm review was often complicated, inefficient, and slow. This process is reviewed, problems and constraints are discussed, and specific recommendations are given for improving the process.