Importance Clinical experience suggests that hospital inpatients have become more
complex over time, but few studies have evaluated this impression. Objective To assess …

Importance Clinical experience suggests that there are substantial differences in patient
complexity across medical specialties, but empirical data are lacking. Objective To compare …

Background: Hospitals show wide variation in outcomes and systems of care. It is unclear
whether hospital complexity—the range of services and technologies provided—affects …

Background Complexity of care has implications for quality of care, health costs, medical
errors, and patient and physician satisfaction. The objective was to compare complexity of …

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND Patient complexity is often operationalized by counting multiple
chronic conditions (MCC) without considering contextual factors that can affect patient risk …

Introduction Measuring the impact of care complexity on health outcomes, based on
psychosocial, biological and environmental circumstances, is important in order to detect …

Background: Patients with complex health needs are increasingly the focus of health system
redesign. Objective: To characterize complex patients, as defined by their primary care …

PURPOSE We wanted to demonstrate a method for calculating the relative complexity of
ambulatory clinical encounters. METHODS Measures of complexity should reflect the …

BACKGROUND: Although the number of elderly people is progressively increasing in the
world, old and very old patients have been under-represented and understudied in trials …

ContextReferral to high-volume hospitals has been recommended for operations with a
demonstrated volume-outcome relationship. The characteristics of patients who receive care …