How much do hospital staff know, how much do they care, and what should they know about economic aspects of Diagnosis Related Groups? The case of an Italian children’s hospital

Abstract

Background: Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) costing enables more efficient therapeutic choices. For this to occur, staff must be aware of the costs of the resources used in the process.
Objective: The paper aims to identify potential information gaps of physicians, nurses, and administrative staff regarding economic aspects. It explores the intersection of financial awareness and the perceived importance of economic factors to evaluate the information deficiencies across these professional groups.
Methods: The costs of DRG 546 different phases are estimated. Data on economic factors awareness (EFA) and economic factors importance (EFI) are gathered through a questionnaire. The survey involved 61 Italian employees of an Italian children’s hospital among physicians, nurses, and administrative staff.
Results: A trade-off emerges between the scarce knowledge of the DRG economic aspects and their importance for physicians and nurses. Awareness of economic aspects does not depend on years of seniority.
Conclusions: Economic factors awareness is low, although the staff considers this issue important. An information gap needs to be addressed. Clinical staff are partially aware of the costs of the activities in which they are directly involved, but they are unaware of other economic aspects of the therapeutic process. Nurses are the professional group with the lowest cost awareness. Different professional groups require different financial information. Physicians and nurses should be aware of relevant costs and the cost of activities with negligible impact on patient outcomes.
Potential implications: Administrative offices often do not know what economic data could be helpful in the physicians’ or nurses’ decisions. In addition, medical and nursing staff do not know precisely what information to ask for. Workgroups composed of administrative and healthcare staff should define what relevant financial data should be provided and how.

Keywords

Economic aspects awareness / Economic aspects importance / Information gap / DRG costing / Healthcare

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions that made it possible to improve the article by making it clearer or readers unfamiliar with Italian healthcare.

AUTHORS CONTRIBUTIONS

The research design and the final version of the paper are attributable to Guido Modugno. DRG costing and the administration of the questionnaire were performed by Mario Casolino. Both coauthors developed the methodology and the literature review. Tina Corelli, Martina Vardabasso, and Alessandra Rachelli contributed to the data collection and analysis.

ETHICAL STATEMENT

The present study conformed to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki and was performed with the approval of the Ethics Committee of Institute for Maternal and Child Health - IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo” (No. 31/23). Written informed consent was received from all study participants.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health through the contribution given to the Institute for Maternal and Child Health IRCCS Burlo Garofolo, Trieste - Italy.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE

The author declares that there is no conflicts of interest.

ETHICS APPROVAL

The Publication Ethics Committee of the Sciedu Press. The journal’s policies adhere to the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

PROVENANCE AND PEER REVIEW

Not commissioned; externally double-blind peer reviewed.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

DATA SHARING STATEMENT

No additional data are available.

OPEN ACCESS

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

COPYRIGHTS

Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.

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