1. MEASUREMENT OF THE VARIATION

 

1.1. ECHO GEOGRAPHIC METHODS

 

Magnitude of an event: Crude rate, standardised rate

Both are meant to describe the magnitude of a phenomenon in a particular geographic unit of analysis - the number of hospital admissions of a particular clinical event or surgical procedure, occurred within a healthcare area, during a period of study.

Crude rate calculation is very simple. The number of admissions is to be the numerator, and total population living in a healthcare area is to be the denominator. They are normally calculated for every 1,000 or 10,000 inhabitants.

Standardised rates are calculated using the direct method , and they represent the rate that a specific healthcare area would have, if it had the age and sex distribution of the standard population.

 

Note: In ECHO, when the goal is on analysing an individual country the standard population is the population of the country under study; however when international comparison is the goal, the standard population is built using all the ECHO countries.

 

1. Interpretation. Crude rate, standardised rate

2. Graphical representation: Maps

 

 

Magnitude of the variation: Ratio of variation

ECHO generally uses different approaches to estimate the level of variation across units of analysis that could be classified into two groups of methods: a) those which merely describe the difference in standardised rates -ratio of variation; and, b) those differentiating random and systematic variation using the difference between observed and expected cases -Standardised Utilisation Ratio (SUR), the Systematic Component Variation (SCV) or the Empirical Bayes estimation (EB).

ECHO graphically represents variation using dotplots, bubble plots and maps.

 

1. Interpretation. SUR, CSV and EB

2. Graphical representation: Dotplots, Bubble plots and SUR maps

 

 

 


Please cite this publication as:

European Collaboration for Healthcare Optimization (ECHO) www.echo-health.eu. Zaragoza (Spain): Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud-Instituto Investigación Sanitaria Aragón; c2011. Bernal-Delgado E, Thygesen LC, Martínez-Lizaga N, Comendeiro M on behalf of the ECHO consortium. Handbook on methodology: Measurement of the variation; 2014 Apr 27 [ accessed: date ]; Available from: http://www.echo-health.eu/ handbook/measuring_variation.html


 

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