OBJECTIVE To examine the association between hospital procedure volume and treatment outcomes following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT). METHODS: Out of 1, 050 patients who received allo-BMTs between 1998 and 2000 in 21 Korean hospitals, 752 with first allo-BMT and complete data were included in this study. Study subjects were divided into the following three groups according to cumulative hospital experience of all-BMTs during the study period: low (< 30 cases), medium (30-49) and high (> or =50 cases) volume. Patient outcome was defined as early survival at day 100 and one-year survival. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association between hospital experience and survival at day 100 and one year. RESULTS: When the low volume group was defined as the reference group, the adjusted relative risks (RR) of survival at day 100 for the high volume group were 2.46 (95% CI, 1.13-5.36) for all patients, 2.61 (1.04-6.57) for those with leukemia, and 2.20 (0.47-10.32) for those with aplastic anemia. For one-year survival, adjusted RR for the high volume group were 2.52 (1.40-4.51) for all patients, 1.99 (1.01-3.93) for leukemia, and 6.50 (1.57-26.80) for aplastic anemia. None of the RR for the medium volume group was statistically significant. Patient factors showing significant relationship with survival were donor-recipient relation, human leukocyte antigen matching status, time from diagnosis to transplant, and disease stage. CONCLUSION: The study results suggest that the cumulative experience of hospitals in providing allo-BMT is positively associated with patient survival.
Investigating the existence of volume-outcome relationships for specific disease groups relates directly to the policy issue of whether, and how, specific inpatient services should be regionalized. This study examined whether medical costs and lengths of stay as outcomes were affected by changes in volume within hospitals. Based on the claims data obtained from National Federation of Medical Associations, each six disease categories from medical and surgical conditions were selected and 29,720 cases from 1,266 hospitals were analyzed. Main findings of the research can be summarized as follows: 1. Analyzing volume and cost per case relationship, tonsillectomy class 1, hernia procedure class 0, appendectomy and cesarean section class 0,1 in surgical conditions showed negative relationship significantly. In cases of medical conditions, costs per case in respiratory neoplasm class 2, COPD class 1, 2, digestive malignancy were also related to volume negatively. 2. Comparing volume with length of stay per case, lens procedure class 0, hernia procedure class 0, appendectomy class 0,1 cesarean section class 1 in surgical conditions showed negative relationships significantly. In medical conditions, volume of respiratory neoplasm class 2, COPD class 1,2, digestive malignancy class 0 were associated with negatively. 3. within same disease categories, changes in cost and length of stay per case to volume were more remarkable in severe cases. These results suggested a significant inverse relationship between disease cases and cost, length of stay per case as outcome variables.