Skip Navigation

The European Journal of Public Health 1997 7(2):136-143; doi:10.1093/eurpub/7.2.136
© 1997 by European Journal of Public Health
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by LEYLAND, A. H.
Right arrow Articles by BODDY, F. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by LEYLAND, A. H.
Right arrow Articles by BODDY, F. A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Measuring performance in hospital care

Length of stay in gynaecology

ALASTAIR H. LEYLAND and F. ANDREW BODDY

Public Health Research Unit,University of Glasgow Glasgow,UK

A.H Leyland,Public Health Research Unit,versity of Glasgow,1,Litybank Gardens,Glasgow,G12 8RZ,Scotland,UK,tel.{boxplus}44 141 3305091,fax {boxplus}44 3372776

The UK health care reforms, leading to the internal National Health Service market, have created pressures to assess the performance of hospitals whether in terms of the efficiency with which they use their resources or the outcomes they achieve. There is a tendency to assume that ‘least is best’, but it should be fairly obvious that the performance or outcomes of a specialty in a particular hospital will depend on the characteristics of its patients, its diagnostic case mix and the social circumstances of the areas in which its patients live. Summary measures which do not take account of these influences are inevitably suspect. Recent controversy over the UK Government's ‘star ratings’ mirrors similar arguments over the publication of league tables for schools; this paper uses the statistical method of multilevel modelling (developed in the context of assessing educational performance) to explore variations in the length of hospital stay for gynaecology patients in Scotland. The conclusions emphasize the importance of distinguishing between influences that can be reasonably attributed to the hospitals themselves and those which arise from differences in the patients they treat or the areas from which these patients come.

Keywords: case mix, hospital performance, management information, multilevel modelling


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.