Casemix management systems : an overview of system requirements

The introduction of casemix funding for health services has lead to an urgent need to improve support for management decision making regarding the efficient and effective delivery of health services. This need is being met by a number of vendors in a variety of ways. Agencies and health departments have put in a considerable effort to identify critical information needs which must be met by the system selected for purchase. In the process of developing an educational package to teach students how to use casemix data for decision making, the authors have collected both user defined system specifications and vendor descriptions of systems available for this purpose in Australia. This paper reviews some of the characteristics observed in the implementation of casemix management support systems and relates these to general information systems principles, the needs of decision makers, and a number of casemix decision support systems.