Accountability of Nursing Interventions vs. Severity of Illness Scores for the Hospital Care Cost Of Total Hip Replacement.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which nursing care compared to severity of illness (SOI) accounted for direct hospital costs. The type, frequency, and duration of nursing interventions required for patients undergoing total hip replacement surgery by the SOI stages with independent t-tests were identified. Although patients in Stage 3 generally needed a greater amount of each intervention than patients in Stage 2, the differences in needs for nursing interventions were not consistent using SOI. With hierarchical multiple regression analyses, results indicated nursing interventions explained significantly more variability in hospital care costs than SOI scores. Relying only on SOI scores for reimbursement may not accurately reflect the resource consumption of health care.