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Preventable hospital stays for ambulatory care sensitive conditions

This measure represents a tentedency to overuse hospitals as a main source of care. This indicator describes the hospital disrchage rate for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions per 1,000 fee-for-service Medicare enrollees. Ambulatory care-sensitive conditions include: convulsions, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bacterial pneumonia, asthma, congestive heart failure, hypertension, angina, cellulitis, diabetes, gastroenteritis, kidney/urinary infection, and dehydration. This measure is age-adjusted.

  • Measurement Period: 2014
Preventable hospital stays for ambulatory care sensitive conditions
104.8
TREND
RANGE: 41.3<211.3

Understanding the color Range

Each Health Indicator includes five-color range indexes. The color range index compares all counties in the state that have the same indicator in the same timeframe. It then calculates where the selected county falls in that range and displays the color that best reflects how the county is doing in comparison to the other counties in the filtered group. The range displays the highest and lowest county values within the state that have the same indicator for the same measurement period.

Current county values will be compared to State and National values if they are available.

Green and red arrows indicate that the county value is better or worse than the state or national value. The arrows will change directions and colors based on which end of the range is positive.
This icon simply means that the county value is equal to the state or national value.
Some indicators display blue, which means the data is not meant for health-status comparison, but is intended simply to provide information.
If history data is available the trend icon will point up or down based on its relationship to the last county value.
History
Dimensions 2014
Dimension Low Value High Number of Counties Compared
CDC Treatment Guidelines
Source
Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care
The Dartmouth Atlas Project (DAP) began in 1993 as a study of health care markets in the United States, measuring variations in health care resources and their utilization by geographic areas: local hospital market areas, regional referral regions, and states. More recently, the research agenda has expanded to reporting on the resources and utilization among patients at specific hospitals. DAP research uses very large claims databases from the Medicare program and other sources to define where Americans seek care, what kind of care they receive, and to correlate increasing expenditures and the supply of health providers and services with health outcomes.

Methodology

Indicators are created from Medicare claims and administrative data. The percentage of Medicare deaths occurring in a hospital was computed using “death in a hospital” (discharge status B in the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) file) as the numerator event. For the percentage of Medicare deaths who were admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) in the last 6 months of life, the numerator event was “death in a hospital with admission to an ICU within 6 months of the death date, “ using MEDPAR files. Rates were age, sex, and race adjusted and were expressed as a percentage of deaths. Medicare decedents are identified by their ZIP code of residence. Total ICU days measures intensive care days (which includes medical, surgical, trauma, and burn care) and coronary care days to produce a total ICU days measure. Intermediate care or step-down units are also included.