Objectives/Classifications & DRG

Objectives of the system

For the Health Directorate (DISA), the goal is to precisely map hospital activity, on an institutional and national scale, in order to:

• Plan resources and organise services (hospital planning)
• Assess and improve the quality of the healthcare system
• Draw on the strengths of the hospital system
• Monitor health policies and measure performance
• Ensure transparency across healthcare provision (EU Directive 2011/24)
• Comply with international reporting obligations (WHO, Eurostat, OECD)

For the National Health Fund (CNS), the aim is to improve transparency around costs:

• Cost analysis
• Comparison between hospitals
• Impact on resource allocation

For hospitals with intensive care beds and medium-stay beds:

• Have management support tools
• Improve transparency around medical activities
• Management and benchmarking tools

Classification & DRG

Documentation of hospital stays often relies on doctors' freeform notes, and may be far from standardised. In 1948, the WHO introduced a classification system to structure and standardise descriptions of diagnoses and procedures. The DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups) system groups hospital stays together in medically and financially cohesive groups, helping to improve the transparency of hospital activity.