Abstract
Purpose: We aimed to develop indicators based on electronic administrative data to compare treatment intensity at a hospital level in Tuscany, Italy. Methods: Data from 3 university hospitals (UHs), 11 local hospitals (LHs) and 2 private hospitals were analysed. Patients newly treated with an intravitreal injection were followed up for 365 days. Indicator #1 concerned hospitals with >80% of injections linked to a drug and patients with all injections linked to a drug. Indicator #2 included patients who received ⩾3 injections during the first 90 days, regardless of injection-drug linkage. Results: Indicator #1 was computed on four hospitals and included 3210 patients (48.3%). The average number of injections was 3.24 in the largest UH1. Compared to the latter, indicator #1 was significantly lower in UH2 and UH3 (−0.47 and −0.58, respectively; p < 0.001). Indicator #2 was computed on all hospitals and included 2789 patients (41.9%). UH1 delivered about 4.33 injections. Compared to the latter, LH4 delivered +0.62 injections (p < 0.001) and nine other hospitals delivered between −0.22 and −0.94 injections (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The two indicators proved to have the potential for supporting clinicians and policy makers in promoting the appropriate treatment intensity with intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1440-1447 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | European Journal of Ophthalmology |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 30 Oct 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 01 Nov 2020 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor
- appropriate treatment intensity
- health records
- indicator
- intravitreal drugs
- retina
- treatment
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ophthalmology