Neiman publishes advanced imaging prediction index

The Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute (HPI) has developed and released a comorbidity index designed to help predict the use of advanced imaging.Titled "The Neiman Imaging Comorbidity Index (NICI)," the document "fills a gap in risk-adjustment methods for imaging utilization," and was developed based on radiology claims for 10.5 million individuals covered by healthcare service provider Optum's Clinformatics Data Mart database, the Neiman HPI said in a statement. It was published January 24 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology."In designing the NICI, we balanced the marginal improvement in the ability to predict advanced imaging use from each comorbidity included in the NICI," said lead author Casey Pelzl. "Because we were able to limit the number of comorbidities included in the NICI, we were left with an index that is far easier to use than the existing indexes such as [the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI)]."Risk adjustment is a statistical process that helps predict a person's likely healthcare use and its cost; imaging utilization research requires adjusting for differences among patients to provide unbiased conclusions, according to the institute's statement. The CCI is widely used, but it was developed to predict mortality in a cancer patient population, not imaging in a broad patient population, according to the Neimen HPI.To craft the index, Pelzl and colleagues used claims data from 10.5 million Optum beneficiaries from January 2018 to December ...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Clinical News CT Molecular Imaging MRI Nuclear Medicine Source Type: news