Technical Notes-Rates of Selected Hospital Procedures Examined for Over or Under-Use by County, 2005-2015Q3

The dataset contains hospitalization counts and rates, statewide and by county, for 4 medical procedures for which there could be possible over- or under-use and for which utilization varies across hospitals or geographic areas. High or low rates, by themselves, do not represent poor quality of care. Instead, the information is intended to inform consumers about local practice patterns or identify potential problem areas that might need further study. The procedures, based upon the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs), include: coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) (age 40+), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (age 40+), hysterectomy (age 18+), and laminectomy or spinal fusion (age 18+). Note: HCAI is only releasing the first 3 quarters of 2015 data due to a change in the reporting of diagnoses/procedures from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS effective October 1, 2015, and the inability of the AHRQ software to handle both code sets concurrently.