From paper to production – going live with HRG4

Healthcare Resource Groups [HRG] are the mechanism by which patient activity is classified according to case mix in England. They are the primary funding mechanism for acute care in the English National Health Service [NHS], under the Department of Health's Payment by Results [PbR] national policy. This Department collects annual cost data ('Reference Costs'), and uses this as the basis for setting a national tariff price at an HRG level for acute treatments, procedures and services. The current HRG reimbursement version is HRG version 3.5. The Department of Health has announced that from 1st April 2009, funding will be based on HRG4 instead. "Going Live" Since completing the design of HRG4 in April 2007, the NHS Information Centre Casemix Service has been working with its business partners (DH PbR, NHS Connecting for Health and the Audit Commission) to prepare for its use by the DH PbR team for national reimbursement from April 2009. This work is categorised under a number of key headings: Processes, Products, People.