Abstract
BackgroundPneumonia has a high human toll and a substantial economic burden in developed countries like Japan, where the crude mortality rate was 77.7 per 100,000 people in 2017. As this trend is going to continue with increasing number of the elderly multi-morbid population in Japan; monitoring performance over time is a social need to alleviate the disease burden. The study objective was to determine the characteristics of hospital standardized mortality ratios (HSMRs) for pneumonia in Japan from 2010 to 2018 to describe this trend.MethodsData of the DPC (Diagnostic Procedures Combination) database were used, which is an administrative claims and discharge summary database for acute care in-patients in Japan. HSMRs were calculated using the actual and expected numbers of in-hospital deaths, the latter of which was calculated using logistic regression model, with a number of explanatory variables, e.g., age, sex, urgency of admission, mode of transportation, patient volume per month in each hospital, A-DROP score, and Charlson comorbidity index (CCI). We constructed two HSMR models: a single-year model, which included hospitals with > 10 in-patients per month and, a 9-year model, which included those hospitals with complete 9-year data. Predictive accuracy of the logistic models was assessed using c-index (area under receiver operating curve).ResultsTotal 230,372 patients were included for the analysis over the 9-year study period. Calculated HSMRs showed wide variation among hospitals. The proportion of hospitals with HSMR less than 100 increased from 36.4% in 2010 to 60.6% in 2018. Both models showed good predictive ability with a c-statistic of 0.762 for the 9-year model, and no less than 0.717 for the single-year model.ConclusionThis study denoted that HSMRs of pneumonia can be calculated using DPC data in Japan and revealed significant variations among hospitals with comparable case-mixes. Therefore, HSMR can be used as yet another measure to help improve quality of care over time if other indicators are examined in parallel and to get a clear picture of where hospitals excel and lack.
Highlights
Pneumonia has a high human toll and a substantial economic burden in developed countries like Japan, where the crude mortality rate was 77.7 per 100,000 people in 2017
Though many potent antibiotics and therapeutic strategies have been developed over several decades, 15 individuals still die every hour on an average from pneumonia in Japan [1]
The All Japan Hospital Association (AJHA) is one of the largest nation-wide hospital associations comprising of 2500 hospitals, which manages the administration of the Medi-Target project, a benchmark project using clinical indicators based on Diagnostic Procedures Combination (DPC) data
Summary
Pneumonia has a high human toll and a substantial economic burden in developed countries like Japan, where the crude mortality rate was 77.7 per 100,000 people in 2017 As this trend is going to continue with increasing number of the elderly multi-morbid population in Japan; monitoring performance over time is a social need to alleviate the disease burden. Pneumonia is the leading cause of morbidity (hospitalization) and mortality (in-patient deaths) associated with infectious diseases around the world and affects all age groups. Many developed countries, such as Japan, are dealing with a super-aged society where multi-morbidity is a common scenario. Hospital standardized mortality ratio (HSMR) is a representative risk-adjusted tool that measures mortality by taking account of factors known to affect the underlying risk of death [3]
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