Abstract

Integrating GIS in Measuring Clinical Risk of Patients in VHA
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Amy Sadler, Peter Almenoff, Colleen Mangeot, Yu-Fang Li

The Office of Quality and Safety (OQS) of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) was established in 2007 with an aim to integrate analytics in the operations of VHA facilities to ensure safe, efficient and high quality of care delivery for veterans. This presentation will highlight the integration of geography and health data within the organization to understand geographic variations in resources needed to treat patients served by the VHA. We obtained patient demographics, Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) score and Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs) as well as facility characteristics from VHA administrative datasets. We used spatial statistics to identify patterns, high/low clusters and outlier areas in DCG score. We applied geographic models to assess the associations of DCG score with HCCs, patient and facility characteristics and other geographic features. Results derived from this project may help facilities to better allocate resources based on regional variations in clinical risk of patients.