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The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Casemix Study
Author(s) -
Fisher Dale A,
Murray Jo M,
Cleary Michael I,
Brewerton Rita E
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1998.tb123469.x
Subject(s) - geography , medicine
Synopsis With increasing implementation of casemix‐based funding for hospitals, quantitative data were needed to confirm the clinical impression that treating Aboriginal (compared with non‐Aboriginal) inpatients consumes significantly more resources. Utilisation data, collected over a three‐month period in 10 hospitals, were used to determine a cost per inpatient episode, which was grouped according to ANDRG‐ 3to give a cost per AN‐DRG for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) patients and non‐ATSI patients. ATSI patients had consistently longer average length of stay and significant variation in relative frequency of admissions, compared with non‐ATSI patients, with higher prevalences of infectious diseases. Degenerative and neoplastic conditions were more common in non‐ATSI patients. There were significant differences in casemix‐adjusted costs per patient episode (ATSI, $1856; non‐ATSI, $1558; P <0.001). Our study has quantified differential resource consumption between two Australian populations, and highlights the need for recognition of some hospitals' atypical populations and special funding requirements.