PUB380 Casemix and Activity Based Funding

Health care is complex and involves many different interventions and activities. To better understand this complexity, and to describe and manage it, methods for describing the ‘products’ or ‘activities’ that the health system delivers are needed. Casemix systems are information tools that group patients into clinical meaningful and resource homogenous groups to classify episodes of patient care. Casemix enables better decisions about equitable allocation of resources, changes aimed at increasing productivity and improved service delivery, while facilitating the evaluation of care outcomes. Casemix classifications help explain the relationship between health care activity and the costs of providing care. Activity Based Funding with the AR-DRG classification defines and counts hospital ‘activity’ for acute admitted patients. Other casemix classifications classify the other patient care that hospitals provide: ambulatory, emergency and sub and nonacute care.