California

Focus on Variation Over Time

This section shows the high degree of variation across States and over time in potentially avoidable adult and pediatric hospital admissions for composites of acute and chronic conditions.

These AHRQ Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs) and Pediatric Quality Indicators (PDIs) composite measures refer to hospital admissions that evidence suggests could have been avoided, at least in part, through high-quality outpatient care. Data are from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP).

Select one of the links below for data on adult and pediatric potentially avoidable hospital admissions:

• Adult
• Pediatric

For adults, the PQI composites are defined as follows:

• PQI Acute Composite – admissions for dehydration, bacterial pneumonia, and urinary infections.
• PQI Chronic Composite – admissions for diabetes (short-term complications, long-term complications, uncontrolled, and lower extremity amputations), hypertension, congestive heart failure, angina without procedure, and asthma.
• PQI Combined Composite – admissions for all of the acute and chronic conditions listed above.

For children, the PDI composites are defined as follows:

• PDI Acute Composite – admissions for gastroenteritis and urinary infections.
• PDI Chronic Composite – admissions for asthma and diabetes with short-term complications.
• PDI Combined Composite – admissions for all of the acute and chronic conditions listed above.

Many factors might influence the variation across States, including the context of its environment. To learn about the contextual factors that might have a cause, effect, or other indirect association with the results shown in the graphics, select this link or Contextual Factors.