Top Five Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC) for California Hospitals
Major Diagnostic Categories can be used to help identify what types of healthcare specialists are needed at each hospital.
Why Publish Top Five Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC) for California Hospitals?
The top five inpatient diagnosis groups based on Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC) data visualizations provide two different views for each California hospital in 2021. Each MDC corresponds to a major organ system (e.g., Respiratory System, Circulatory System, Digestive System) rather than a specific disease (e.g., cancer, sepsis). Since MDC are also generally associated with a particular medical specialty, the MDC can be used to help identify what types of healthcare specialists are needed at each hospital. For instance, a hospital with “Circulatory System, Disease and Disorders” as one of their Top Five MDC is more likely to have a greater need for cardiac specialists.
The first data visualization focuses on the hospitals, and the second visualization focuses on the Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC).
The Top 5 Major Diagnosis Categories (MDC) by MDC visualization below can be used to identify which hospitals include a specific MDC in their respective Top Five MDC.
How HCAI Created This Product
The Top Five MDC for each hospital were identified from the number of encounters for each MDC from the Patient Discharge Data (PDD) in 2021. To protect patient personal information, the California Health and Human Services Agency has adopted a policy of statistically masking or de-identifying sensitive data (CalHHS Data De-identification guidelines). For the visualizations above, several rules have been applied to prevent providing the exact count of encounters for small groups of individuals. This will cause some hospitals to have fewer than five MDC in their respective Top Five MDC lists. The list of MDC can be found in the 2021 Complete Data Documentation on HCAI’s Data Documentation page.
Additional Information
Topic: Healthcare Utilization
Source Link: Healthcare Utilization – Inpatient Discharges
Citation: HCAI – Patient Discharge Data – Top Five Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC) for California Hospitals, 2021
Temporal Coverage: 2021
Spatial/Geographic Coverage: Statewide
Frequency: Annually