Handbook of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Applications

Tutorial I

Business Administration in a Medical Industry

Determining Possible Predictors for Days with Hospice Service for Patients with Dementia

Linda A. Miner, Ph.D., James Ross, MD and Karen James, RN, BSN, CHPN

Medicare has a set of guidelines for hospices for admitting patients with dementias to their care. The ideal number of days with the service is 6 months or less, but prognostication is difficult for the noncancer patient. The following example is part of a project that we did to determine what variables might predict length of stay and particularly which might predict a stay of ≤ 180 days.

Data were gathered for 6 years from a large hospice on patients with dementia, many of whom, had Alzheimer’s disease. There were 449 cases in ...