Waiting Times Flashcards
Problems with long waiting times?
Political pressure
Prolonged suffering
Delayed benefit
Uncertainty
What did Sicilliani et al (2014) show about mean waiting times in the UK?
Graphs of mean waiting time for hip replacements in the UK
250 days - 2000
Less than 100 - 2008
What did Sicilliani et al (2014) show the mean waiting times was for a hip replacement in the Netherlands?
Consistently around 50 days in 2008
What is the difference between list and waiting time?
List: Length of the list waiting for the procedure
Time: Duration of each individuals wait
Different methods/versions of measuring waiting time?
Time v List Outpatient v Inpatient Speciality/procedure timings Elective v Emergency Mean v Median Waiting over 8/12 months
Problem with measuring those treated on the list?
Can get affected by the number of high/low priority patients
What did Scilliani and Hurst (2005) say about different ways of measuring waiting times?
- Mean is always higher than the median as it is impacted by large outliers
- Often closely align but can show clear differences
What is Martin and Smith do in their 2003 paper?
Used panel data to model waiting times in the NHS
With the demand graph for waiting time what happens in there is a positive shock in demand?
Increase in waiting time and in activity (Demand line shifts to the right)
Why is the demand curve for waiting times downward sloping?
People will move to the private sector if the wait is too long
With the supply graph for waiting time what happens in there is a increase in funding?
Supply line moves down, supplies increase and the waiting time reduces
Why is the supply curve sloped?
At longer waiting times hospitals act to treat more people, this may be to do with doctors concerns for patients, targets or political pressure
What makes up the utility curve for elective treatment?
benefit, waiting time, other consumption minus the cost of searching for treatment
U = ( b , w , c ) - F
What makes up the utility curve for public treatment?
benefit, waiting time, gross income minus the cost of searching for treatment
U = ( b , w , y) - F
What makes up the utility curve for private treatment?
benefit, waiting time, gross income minus the cost of treatment all minus the cost of searching for treatment
U = ( b , 0 , y - p ) - F
What makes up the utility curve for no treatment?
U = ( 0 , 0 , y ) - F
When will someone opt for public treatment?
U public > U private and U no treatment
Explain the graph for public / private treatment?
- Benefit on vertical, income on horizontal,
- No treatment horizontal line near the bottom
- Waiting line, slight downward diagonal to the right, anything to the right is private, left is public
Which lines shift if the waiting times change in the public/private treatment graph?
No treatment (up if times increase) Wait time (Shifts left if it increases)
Marginal cost of supply is equal to?
The marginal benefit of lower waiting times