Table 2.
Comparisons among Six Profiling Methods: Discriminating Ability and Correlations
| Number (%) of Significant Pairwise Hospital Comparisons* | Correlations with Profiles from Other Methods | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profiling Method | At > 95% Probability Level | At > 90% Probability Level | Number of Hospitals with p > 80% of Being in Best 25% | Period 1, Single-Period Model | Method 1 Average Profile | Method 2 Average Profile | Method 3 Average Profile | Method 4 Average Profile |
| Period 1 profile, 3-period model (“reference method”) | 1,076 (5.4%) | 2,613 (13.1%) | 8 | 0.94 | 0.96 | 0.92 | 0.94 | 0.88 |
| Period 1 profile, single-period model | 676 (3.3%) | 1,840 (9.2%) | 3 | 1 | 0.85 | 0.81 | 0.81 | 0.71 |
| Method 1 average profile† | 3,130 (15.7%) | 5,146 (25.9%) | 18 | 1 | 0.99 | >0.99 | 0.97 | |
| Method 2 average profile† | 4,215 (21.2%) | 6,192 (31.1%) | 24 | 1 | 0.99 | 0.97 | ||
| Method 3 average profile† | 3,514 (17.7%) | 5,536 (27.8%) | 20 | 1 | 0.98 | |||
| Method 4 average profile† | 2,995 (15.1%) | 4,931 (24.8%) | 17 | 1 | ||||
*
Percentages are relative to 19,900 possible pairwise comparisons of 200 hospitals.
†
Average profiles weightings are (1) equal weights; (2) z-scored by random-effects standard deviation σt; (3) z-scored by empirical standard deviation of the estimated profiles in each period; (4) weighted to approximate profiling by the probability of survival through the three periods.