Approach in Chile to an evaluation of the management of beds in general public hospitals of greater complexity

Abstract

Using the information available in the Related Diagnosis Groups (DRG) report, and in the data of hospital costs (PERC formerly WinSIG), the behavior of 26 highly complex Chilean public hospitals is shown with respect to DRG mean weight and average stay, percentage of cases with prolonged stays, functional index and average cost of discharge. This method can give a simple and useful guidance with regard to bed resource management and identify areas of opportunity and learning. Considering that the bed resource concentrates a large part of the expenses of the hospitals, and that it has been proposed in Chile that the DRGs will be used in the payment mechanisms, new studies will be required to explain the great diversity of hospital behavior in the beds management.