Session 8 - Health care economics Flashcards
What are the basic concepts in health economics?
Effectiveness equality scarcity opportunity costs utility
What does health economics ensure to do?
Make the best possible use and the most beneficial things with the resources at disposal
What is economic evaluation?
comparing resource implications and benefits of alternatives ways of delivering health care
What are the 3 main steps in economic evaluation?
Input of resources -> healthcare intervention -> Output
What are some things included in the input of resources?
Costs:
- Non medical (time are work)
- Medical (treatment)
What benefits are measured in the output of economic evaluation?
Survival
Monetary stuff
QoL
Savings on other health care resources if the patient state improves
Improved productivity of patient returns to work (paying taxes etc)
What is a cost minimisation analysis?
Assumes the outputs are the same
focus is on cost
as outcome is same which is cheaper?
What is a cost benefit analysis?
inputs and outputs are all measured and valued in monetary terms
Comparisons with interventions outside health care
Is the cost worth the benefit?
What is the main difficulty with cost benefit analyses?
Hard to place monetary values on non monetary benefits
What is a cost effectiveness analysis?
Comparing inputs which have a COMMON health outcome
ost per unit outcome
if costs are higher for one treatment but effectiveness is better, how much extra benefit is obtained per unit cost…is it worth it?
What is a cost utility analysis?
Interventions can be compared in costs per QALY
Focuses on quality of health outcome produced or foregone
What does 1 QALY equal?
1 year of perfect health OR 10 years of 10% perfect health etc
What is the equation to work out a QALY?
QoL (as measured with SF-35/ EQ5D) X no. of years of survival
What are the disadvantages of using QALYS
- Resources not distributed according to need but the benefits gain per unit cost
- Technical difficulties with calculations
- May not capture all dimensions of benefit - the values expressed by experimental subjects may not be representative
- All issues similar to RCTs (follow up, sample size, blinding)
What are opportunity costs?
A used resource cannot be used elsewhere, opportunity costs is the term used to describe the potential benefits lost by using a resource one way rather than the next best alternative.
