USING THE HANDICAP CODE OF THE ICIDH FOR CLASSIFYING PATIENTS BY INTENSITY OF NURSING-CARE REQUIREMENTS

An 11-class patient classification system (PCS) has been built on a re code of two dimensions of the handicap code of the ICIDH: physical ind ependence and mobility handicaps. The proposed system, called MAC XI, explains 78% of the variance of nursing care hours required by nursing -home residents and extended-care hospital patients. This percentage o f variation is higher than the one explained by traditional dependency grids such as the Exton-Smith, Murphy, Kuntzmann and SMAF. MAC XI, ba sed on two dimensions of the handicap code, is thus a powerful tool fo r predicting intensity of nursing care for staffing and budgeting purp oses in long-term care instutitions.