Main menu

Relative Weight

Relative Weight is an indicator of the expected consumption in a care episode (or group of episodes) compared to the expected consumption of a baseline episode which is taken as a reference. In its most disintegrated form, the Relative Weight of an episode grouped into a Diagnosis Related Group ( DRG) represents the expected cost of that episode compared to the average episode. For example, if an episode grouped into the class "Vaginal delivery without a complicated diagnosis" has a Relative Weight of 0.563, it means that its expected cost is 56.3% of the expected cost for the average episode. These weights are calculated annually for each DRG review.

From a more aggregated perspective, a Relative Weight can also be obtained for a particular group of episodes (for example, those dealt with by a hospital or a specific clinical service). Occasionally, it may be desirable to know up to which point an activity carried out by one hospital is more or less complex (in terms of expected cost) compared to similar hospitals (for example, to analyse the expected costs of that hospital compared to what would be expected).

By means of the information supplied by the DRGs, it is relatively easy to notice whether a hospital deals with a more complex casuistry than its comparison group (and to quantify that difference): just by dividing the Mean Weight (MW) of that hospital by the Mean Weight (MW) of its comparison group. Thus, a hospital may have a MW of 1.10 and maintain a complexity 10% higher than the average patient without it being an obstacle to maintain an RW of 0.88 (12% less complexity than its comparison group). Naturally, this is only possible if the MW of the hospitals which make up the comparison group was 1.25.