Patient Complexity Characteristics in the Hospital Setting

Crelier, Baptiste; Streit, Sven; Donzé, Jacques D (2018). Patient Complexity Characteristics in the Hospital Setting. American Journal of Accountable Care, 9(3), pp. 3-8. Managed Care & Healthcare Communications, LLC

[img] Text
Crelier AJAC 2018.pdf - Published Version
Restricted to registered users only
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (207kB)

OBJECTIVES:
To identify the characteristics of patients, diagnoses, treatments, processes, and communication that account for patient complexity as described by general internists in a hospital setting, as well as the frequency of patient complexity in the hospital setting.

STUDY DESIGN:
Multicenter cross-sectional survey at the departments of medicine of 3 large hospitals in Switzerland between July 2015 and October 2015.

METHODS:
A total of 111 general internists from 3 hospitals returned the survey, yielding a response rate of 53%. The survey had 21 closed-ended questions about the influence on patient complexity of factors in 4 categories of characteristics: patients’ characteristics, comorbidities and diagnoses, therapy, and hospital structure and process.

RESULTS:
The proportion of patients estimated to be complex was 42%. Multi­morbidity was the characteristic most frequently considered to influence patient complexity (95%; n = 106), followed by multiple therapy changes (94%; n = 104), psychiatric diseases (91%; n = 101), alcohol or drug abuse 91%; n = 101), communication barriers (89%; n = 99), several prescriptions (89%; n = 99), patient aggressiveness (88%; n = 98), therapy compliance (88%; n = 97), communication among divisions within the same hospital (85%; n = 94), and care coordination among providers (85%;n = 92).

CONCLUSIONS:
Several factors were identified as playing a role in hospital patient complexity, including multimorbidity, multiple therapy changes, psychiatric diseases, alcohol or drug abuse, and communication barriers.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of General Internal Medicine (DAIM) > Clinic of General Internal Medicine
04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute of General Practice and Primary Care (BIHAM)

UniBE Contributor:

Streit, Sven, Donzé, Jacques

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 360 Social problems & social services

ISSN:

2473-9669

Publisher:

Managed Care & Healthcare Communications, LLC

Language:

English

Submitter:

Doris Kopp Heim

Date Deposited:

17 Oct 2018 15:56

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:18

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.120520

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/120520

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback