Defining chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions in Malaysia: a collaborative consensus study

Objective This paper aims to describe the development of an inventory of chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) relevant to the Malaysian context and identify potentially preventable hospitalisations in the Malaysian Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities based on the developed list. Design Consultative panel discussion, multi-panel modified Delphi and secondary health data analysis. Setting: Malaysian MOH healthcare facilities. Participants 42 experts from the family medicine and internal medicine specialties (modified Delphi), and 2022 inpatient data from MOH hospitals (secondary health data analysis). Outcome measures A list of chronic ACSCs tailored to the Malaysian context and the proportion of potentially preventable hospitalisation in MOH hospitals. Results 10 conditions were identified as chronic ACSCs for Malaysia, namely angina, asthma, chronic kidney disease, convulsions and epilepsy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, heart failure, hypertension, iron deficiency anaemia and ischaemic heart disease. In 2022, these conditions accounted for 8.6% of potentially preventable hospitalisations among the total hospitalisations in MOH hospitals. Conclusion This study provides a base list of chronic ACSCs tailored to the Malaysian context, which enables monitoring of potentially preventable hospitalisations due to chronic conditions. The findings underscore a proportion of hospital admissions that could potentially be avoided through interventions that enhance outpatient care. The conditions identified as ambulatory care sensitive provide specific targets for policy action and resource allocation to optimise outpatient health services and thus reduce the burden of hospitalisations in the country. Trial registration number Malaysian National Medical Research Register, NMRR ID-23–02149-TBZ ( https://nmrr.gov.my/research-directory/45c901d6-f121-4e79-9f38-dd7d283ec9a6 ).