Ronald E. Mills

The application of diagnostic specific cost profiles to cost and reimbursement control in hospitals

A system has been developed to generate hospital budgets based on the types of patients served. Several hundred classes of patients are defined according to clinical attributes such as diagnoses and surgical procedures, and for each class a profile of resources consumed is determined. The class definitions are based both on homogeneity of patient care processes as well as resource consumption. These profiles are expressed as revenues generated by charging departments and as costs both direct and indirect for all services. A methodology has been developed to associate all indirect costs with their source for each service included in the profile. From a forecast of patient load by class, budgets can be computed from the cost profiles and revenues determined from the charging profiles. Further analysisthus can included the effect of changes in case mix as well as changes in patient care processes. The effect on revenues of different reimbursement mechanisms can also be projected as a function of the case mix. The system is currently being implemented for demonstration and evaluation at the Yale-New Haven Hospital.

HOSPSIM: A simulation modeling language for health care systems

to Dupont, McKinsey Company, the RAND Corporation, the World Health Organization, and numerous other firms, and has served previously on the faculty at Indiana University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently he is consulting editor for Richard D. Irwin, Inc., in the area of information and decision sciences, and vice president of Puter Associates, Inc., Computer Systems Consultants.

BUILDING USER INTERFACES WITH AN EXTENSIBLE LANGUAGE SYSTEM

Although matters of form and style are of indisputable importance to effective non-programmer computer use, the match between the users knowledge and the computers understanding of the users needs is critical. We describe experiences with microcomputer-based software that allows the system builder to provide a collection of extensible languages matched to the technical capabilities of different groups of users.