Characteristics of patients from the Hospital Utilization Project Data System: 1980-1982.

The 1974-75 report of the Hospital Utilization Project (HUP) patient data system for rehabilitation hospitals contained 5,427 cases from 20 hospitals. This report is for the three years 1980-82 with 52,404 cases involving 1,911,531 patient days from 40 hospitals. Information is grouped into two sets. The first set includes age, sex, race, and primary payment source. The second set contains length of stay and discharge destination by diagnosis. Diagnostic codes have been grouped to conform as much as possible to the disabling conditions used by the Health Care Financing Administration to define a rehabilitation hospital. These conditions account for 78.5% of discharges. Additional analyses include first admissions versus readmissions, full program versus short-term admissions and region of the country. Length of stay and percentage discharged home for all patients are very similar to those of the 1981 American Hospital Association survey. Variations in case mix for different sections of the United States show that clinical practices and payment policies are not uniform across regions.