Rates of Preventable Hospitalizations for Selected Medical Conditions by County (LGHC Indicator)

The dataset contains hospitalization counts and rates, statewide and by county, for 10 ambulatory care sensitive conditions plus 4 composite measures. Hospitalizations due to these medical conditions are potentially preventable through access to high-quality outpatient care. The conditions include: diabetes short-term complications; diabetes long-term complications; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma in older adults (age 40 and over); hypertension; heart failure; community-acquired pneumonia; urinary tract infection; uncontrolled diabetes; asthma in younger adults (age 18-39); and lower-extremity amputation among patients with diabetes. The composite measures include overall, acute conditions, chronic conditions, and diabetes (new, 2016). The data provides a good starting point for assessing quality of health services in the community. The data does not measure hospital quality. Note: In 2015, HCAI (formerly OSHPD) only released the first three quarters of data due to a change in the reporting of diagnoses from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM codes, effective October 1, 2015. Due to the significant differences resulting from the code change, the ICD-9-CM data is distinguished from the ICD-10-CM data in the data file beginning in 2016.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Contact Email [email protected]
Program Department of Health Care Access and Information, Healthcare Analytics Branch, Administrative Data Group
Homepage URL https://hcai.ca.gov/data-and-reports/topics/
Temporal Coverage

2005-2015Q3, 2016-2022

Spatial/Geographic Coverage

Statewide

Geographic Granularity County
Language English (EN)
Frequency Annually
Source Link https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/rates-of-preventable-hospitalizations-for-selected-medical-conditions-by-county
Data Collection Tool

https://hcai.ca.gov/data-and-reports/submit-data/patient-data/

License Terms of Use
Limitations Use of this data is subject to the CHHS Terms of Use and any copyright and proprietary notices incorporated in or accompanying the individual files.
Additional Limitations

Rates based on only a small count of hospitalizations should be interpreted with caution.

A change in the reporting of diagnoses/procedures from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS (effective October 1, 2015) required significant changes to the technical specifications for each PQI condition. Due to these changes, trend comparisons to pre-2016 data is not recommended. In addition, users should exercise great caution when comparing PQI rates generated from different versions of the PQI software as PQI specifications may be significantly different from version-to-version.

The 2005-2015Q3 data was compiled using PQI Software Version 5.0 (ICD-9-CM coding). The 2016-2022 data was compiled using PQI Software Version v2023 (ICD-10-CM coding).

Additional Information

From 2017 to 2018, a large Statewide increase in PQI #1 (Diabetes Short-term Complications) and a large Statewide decrease in PQI #5 (COPD/Asthma in Older Adults) were noted. These changes may be due to new ICD-10-CM codes and/or changes in coding practices.

Related Resources

AHRQ Prevention Quality Indicator Resources: http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Modules/pqi_resources.aspx.

Citation

HCAI Patient Discharge Data; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Prevention Quality Indicators, SAS Software, Version 5.0 (2005-2015Q3, ICD-9-CM) and Version v2023 (2016-2022, ICD-10-CM).

Last Updated November 21, 2023, 00:53 (UTC)