Volume Calculation of a Subset of Non-surgical Examinations and Procedures in the Norwegian Hospital Service
Report
|Updated
Nasjonalt kunnskapssenter for helsetjenesten har identifisert koder og utført beregning av volum for utførte undersøkelser og prosedyrer innen spesialisthelsetjenesten på oppdrag fra Helsedirektoratet. De beregnede volumtallene skal publiseres på Helsedirektoratets nettsted Fritt sykehusvalg Norge.
Key message
The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Service have operationalized the codes and performed the volume calculations of examinations and procedures in the Norwegian hospital service on the commission from the Norwegian Directorate for Health. The volume figures are to be published on the Directorates web-site Free Hospital Choice Norway. This report concerns part 2 of the project and comprises non-surgical examinations and procedures. Part 1 concerned selected surgical procedures.
Data from the Norwegian Patient Registry from 2008 of all hospital admissions including out-patient consultations were available. The data were anonymous and the selection of medical fields was according to the fields for which waiting time for admission is published on the web-site Free Hospital Choice Norway. To quality ensure the selection of codes and procedures, medical specialists within the selected fields were contacted to ensure clinical relevance and precision of codes to be used in the calculations. The codes used were ICD-10, procedure codes, or fees. Diagnosis-related groups (DRG) was considered but were not found to be sufficiently specific. In cooperation with the Directorate for Health the estimated volume figures were sent to the hospitals for comments and compared with the hospitals own data before publication on the web-site.
The volume describes hospital activity in several medical fields which are in the interest of patients, health personnel, and health planners. These volume figures are not related directly to outcome of examinations and procedures.