[Application of DRGs at a regional hospital].

Background: Of among the different measures systems of hospital production, we adopted the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) approach for the management of the cases series of the "Arnau de Vilanova" Hospital (Valencia, Spain). The use of hospital services makes it possible to establish the number of patients attended and in which services, while pathology distribution reflects the types of patients who makes us of the hospital.

Methods: A transverse study was made, reviewing the clinical histories of the hospitalized patients and applying an autoexcluding medical or surgical DRG designation. Patient inspection and comments with the healthcare staff afforded greater specifications. We included all patients hospitalized between May 11 and 24, 1992, i.e., 263 in total, corresponding to 2.53% of the annual hospitalizations in 1992.

Results: The most frequently employed services were Internal Medicine and General and Digestive Surgery. Hospital activity was defined by 90 DRGs, the GDRGs most associated to hospital (nosocomial) infection being HIV-positive individuals, those operated on for inguinal hernia, and oncological patients with laryngeal cancer.

Conclusions: Hospital activity was found to be concentrated in high volume DRGs--one of them being the Medical Type "non-groupable diseases due to clinical incompleteness of the management parameters, as a result of which this information remained undetermined.