Assessment of the AUTOGRP Patient Classification System

This study was conducted to assess the adaptability of the AUTOGRP Patient Classification System (APCS) to the patient population of western Pennsylvania. The APCS consists of a fixed sex of 383 patient categories, each of which is purported to contain similar patients with respect to resource consumption as measured by length of stay. The assessment of the APCS examines both the reproducibility of the classification using western Pennsylvania patient date and the homogeneity of the resultant categories. The results indicate that the APCS categories examined were not statistically optimal using western Pennsylvania data, and that individual diagnostic-related groups within the APCS do not contain similar patients with respect to resource consumption and with respect to other patient and hospital characteristics.