Higher Quality and Lower Cost from Improving Hospital Discharge Decision Making

James Cox, Vjollca Sadiraj, Kurt E. Schnier and John F. Sweeney

No 2013-09, Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series from Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Abstract: The added costs from excess, wasted resources in healthcare are estimated to exceed the size of the entire defense budget. Effectively addressing this problem requires decreasing the cost of healthcare while increasing its quality by improving healthcare decision making. This paper reports research on improving decisions about hospital discharges -- decisions that are now made by physicians based on mainly subjective evaluations of patients' discharge status. The research has three components: (a) econometric identification of patient medical status and demographic characteristics that discriminate between the likelihood of successful discharge and unsuccessful discharge (resulting in unplanned readmission within 30 days); (b) development of decision support software that incorporates evidence-based discharge criteria; and (c) empirical evaluation of efficacy of the decision support software. Experimental data reported herein indicate that utilization of the decision support software with evidence-based selection of the default option reduces both patients' average length of stay in the hospital and the likelihood of higher risk patients being readmitted.

Keywords: Healthcare; Experiment; Clinical Decision Support System; Risk; Default Option (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D81 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2013-10, Revised 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2014-07.pdf Revised version, 2014 (application/pdf)
http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2015-02.pdf Revised version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Higher quality and lower cost from improving hospital discharge decision making (2016)
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