Impact of Deprivation on Hospital Care Efficiency in Paediatrics

Many studies have shown that deprived patients consumed more healthcare resources than non-deprived patients, in particular in terms of increased length of stay (LOS) and readmission rates, which has an impact on hospital efficiency and the healthcare system as a whole. There are many types of indicators available to assess deprivation in a hospital setting and French decision makers are currently using reliance on public aids to allocate additional funding to hospitals, based on the percentage of deprived patients they admit. However there are limits to this method: it only assesses one dimension of deprivation, the target population often does not know about the existence of those aids, and they have a clear threshold effect. An alternative solution is to use ecological deprivation indices which are obtained by aggregating different variables measured at a specific time and place, i.e. the patient's place of residence at the time of care. One such index, the FDep , was developed specifically in France, although others such as the Carstairs index and the European deprivation index also exist. The primary objective of this study is to study the association between deprivation, measured by the FDep, and hospital care efficiency in paediatric and neonatology patients, measured by the difference between patient LOS and the national average LOS of their diagnosis-related group, DRG). The secondary objectives are to carry out a budget impact analysis on the impact of deprivation for hospitals with a paediatric or neonatology ward, to study the association between deprivation and readmission at 15 days, to study the relation between FDep and the currently used deprivation indicators, and to assess the added value of the FDep compared to those indicators and whether or not it should be used in routine practice. In order to do so, an exhaustive retrospective study using the French hospital claims database will be carried out for the years 2012-2014. Deprivation indices wi