How to Improve the Drafting of Health Profiles

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Mar 15;19(6):3452. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19063452.

Abstract

Delineating patients' health profiles is essential to allow for a proper comparison between medical care and its results in patients with comorbidities. The aim of this work was to evaluate the concordance of health profiles outlined by ward doctors and by epidemiologists and the effectiveness of training interventions in improving the concordance. Between 2018 and 2021, we analyzed the concordance between the health profiles outlined by ward doctors in a private hospital and those outlined by epidemiologists on the same patients' medical records. The checks were repeated after training interventions. The agreement test (Cohen's kappa) was used for comparisons through STATA. The initial concordance was poor for most categories. After our project, the concordance improved for all categories of CIRS. Subsequently, we noted a decline in concordance between ward doctors and epidemiologists for CIRS, so a new training intervention was needed to improve the CIRS profile again. Initially, we found a low concordance, which increased significantly after the training interventions, proving its effectiveness.

Keywords: CIRS; comorbidity; health profiles; risk adjustment.

MeSH terms

  • Comorbidity
  • Hospitals
  • Humans
  • Medical Records*
  • Physicians*