Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
5
pubmed:dateCreated
2000-10-11
pubmed:abstractText
The objective of this study was to compare hospital mortality in Veterans Affairs (VA) and private-sector patients. The study included 5016 patients admitted to 1 VA hospital. Admission severity of illness was measured using a commercial methodology that was developed in a nationwide database of 850,000 patients from 111 private-sector hospitals. The method uses data abstracted from patients' medical records to predict the risk of death in individual patients, based on the normative database. Analyses compared actual and predicted mortality rates in VA patients. VA patients had higher (P < .05) severity of illness than private-sector patients. The observed mortality rate in VA patients was 4.0% and was similar (P = .09) to the predicted risk of death (4.4%; 95% confidence interval 4.0-4.9%). In subgroup analyses, actual and predicted mortality rates were similar in medical and surgical patients and in groups stratified according to severity of illness, except in the highest severity stratum, in which actual mortality was lower than predicted mortality (57% vs 73%; P < .001). We found that in-hospital mortality in 1 VA hospital and a nationwide sample of private-sector hospitals were similar, after adjusting for severity of illness. Although not directly generalizable to other VA hospitals, our findings nonetheless suggest that the quality of VA and private-sector care may be similar with respect to one important and widely used measure.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:issn
1062-8606
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
15
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
207-11
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:articleTitle
Using severity-adjusted mortality to compare performance in a Veterans Affairs hospital and in private-sector hospitals.
pubmed:affiliation
Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies, USA. hgordon@bcm.tmc.edu
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Comparative Study, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.