The study of medical costs with intelligent information systems

Abstract

The analysis of hospital costs in public health-care systems is a difficult task that the use of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) has tried to simplify. After more than two decades, DRGs are still used, though they have had important criticisms. In this paper, COSYS (COsting SYStem), a new computer system that incorporates some AI procedures, is introduced as a tool to study hospital costs and also to validate whether DRGs are close to the reality of a particular hospital. Seven representative DRGs are studied and the conclusions from the study are set out.