THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HOSPITAL UTILIZATION STUDIES

The reports of hospital utilization review (UR) studies that appear in this issue employ a range of design strategies, and much of the varia tion seems accidental - arising because there are many acceptable stra tegies - rather than functional. This paper is about general design st rategy: the value of explicit protocols for sampling and data collecti on, of analyses appropriate to the sampling, of generating reports man agers can use, More coordination is strongly encouraged, to reduce unn ecessary variation and to facilitate comparisons across studies, While individual groups may still opt for different strategies, techniques for increasing the comparability of reported findings are discussed, T his will increase the value of each study, individually, as well as th e value of the collective effort.