An assessment of factors contributing to hospital utilization: and a look at deficiencies in the Utah projection process of hospital bed demand.

Summit County Hospital, Coalville, Utah, and its catchment population, the Summit County residents, were subjects of this study to determine what factors contribute to hospital utilization. Three surveys were conducted. The first was administered to each of the four physicians serving Summit County residents, and its purpose was to determine physician attitude toward county medical facilities. The second, a household survey, was administered to ninety Summit County residents to determine patient attitude toward county medical facilities. The third was a patient origin survey taken from all Summit County Hospital admission records for the period January 1976 to September 1979. The purpose was to determine the area of the county most served by the hospital, as well as hospital services most frequently sought by county residents. No statistical analysis of the physician survey was performed. However, statistical analysis of the household survey demonstrated that responses to questions varied when controlling for response and region of residence; and analysis of the patient origin survey demonstrated a difference in hospital utilization for all years controlling for patient origin and diagnosis. These surveys provided argument that many factors which are not currently accounted for in the Utah projection process of bed demand actually do contribute to hospital utilization. With the above in mind, the Utah projection formula for bed demand was addressed. The main focus was the numerator of the formula, which is largely compiled using hospital admission data. The two data sources used by the state of Utah to determine admission rates per hospital were compared against one another for eleven of the state’s thirty-eight acute care hospitals, and both sources were then compared to a third source. A statistical analysis demonstrated significant disagreement between all sources.