A brief analysis of regional disparities in the use of hospital services for acute cases in Romania

Purpose: to study the geographical disparities in the consumption of hospital services and their potential causesMethodology:The study presented in the article is a descriptive observation one, conducted for the year 2008. The analysis included all the cases discharged from continuous acute care hospitals in Romania, considered valid.There were studied the following hypotheses:the excess in consumption of hospital services (measured by the standardized ratio of the cases and of the hospitalization days, according to the age group) is associated with a lower standard of living and a greater number of bedsthe excess consumption of hospital services generates a reduction of the mortality in the general population in that geographic areas (measured by the standardized mortality report by age group).The association between these variables was tested for the 8 development regions (the Spearman correlation test) respectively for the patient's home county (the Pearson correlation test), using the statistical analysis software SPSS.Results:Although differences in the consumption of among the different development regions, respectively among the counties, are obvious, no association between the high volume of hospital services and mortality was found; therefore, it can be assumed that excessive consumption of services is not accompanied by an improving of the health status of patients as mortality reduction. The income influences poorly the volume and the outcome of the healthcare, but correlates with the number of hospital beds in counties with a higher income level. There is no correlation between the number of hospital beds and the volume of the consumed services. Although, at county level, the correlation between the number of cases and the hospitalization days are proven, there are development regions that surprises by the overall scarcity of cases, but excess hospital days.Conclusions There are variations in hospital care practice, which should be measured and analyzed in terms of causes, and should be prevented through monitoring the service needs, data reporting and the careful assessment of the structures and the resources.