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Health Economics and Efficiency in Healthcare

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Care Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2024) | Viewed by 2905

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Economics, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA
Interests: applied econometrics; efficiency estimation; productivity; stochastic frontier analysis; industrial organization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In order to achieve better health outcomes, it is essential to use the limited healthcare resources available effectively. Hence, measuring efficiency and understanding the interplay between efficiency and its determinants would be important. In the context of healthcare, efficiency refers to either obtaining the greatest benefit from interventions conditional on available resources or obtaining a health benefit with minimal use of resources.

We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions related to the measurement of healthcare efficiency. Specific topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Healthcare management and its impact on efficiency: e.g., gender, marital status, pay, and other features of top healthcare unit administrator and similar governance-related factors and their effect on efficiency;
  • Understanding important determinants of healthcare efficiency;
  • Healthcare unit cost/production efficiency: measuring hospital cost efficiency, technical efficiency, revenue efficiency, and profit efficiency;
  • Comparison of public and private healthcare units in terms of efficiency;
  • Spatial interactions of healthcare units and the effect of such interactions on the healthcare units’ efficiency;
  • Productivity of healthcare units;
  • Measures of success in healthcare.

Dr. Levent Kutlu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • data envelopment analysis
  • cost efficiency
  • healthcare efficiency
  • healthcare management
  • stochastic frontier analysis
  • technical efficiency

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1409 KiB  
Article
Cost-Effectiveness of Corneal Collagen Crosslinking for Progressive Keratoconus: A Brazilian Unified Health System Perspective
by Lucca Ortolan Hansen, Renato Garcia, André Augusto Miranda Torricelli and Samir Jacob Bechara
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(12), 1569; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21121569 - 26 Nov 2024
Viewed by 525
Abstract
Keratoconus is a burden to health systems and patients worldwide. Corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) treatment has been shown abroad to be cost-effective for treating progressive keratoconus. However, no cost-effectiveness studies have been performed in Brazil. The aim of this study was to assess [...] Read more.
Keratoconus is a burden to health systems and patients worldwide. Corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) treatment has been shown abroad to be cost-effective for treating progressive keratoconus. However, no cost-effectiveness studies have been performed in Brazil. The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) compared with the conventional treatment for progressive keratoconus from the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) payer’s perspective. A lifetime microsimulation model was utilized to compare the lifetime costs and quality-adjusted life years for patients undergoing corneal collagen CXL or conventional treatment. Two groups of 5000 18-year-old patients were simulated, with one group receiving corneal CXL at the outset and the control group remaining untreated. The TreeAge Pro Healthcare 2024 software was used for modeling and analysis. Corneal collagen CXL demonstrated superior cost-effectiveness compared to the conventional treatment, with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of 58.26 USD/quality-adjusted life years (QALY) gained (95% CI: 58.17–58.36) and a positive incremental net monetary benefit of USD 11,613.82 (95% CI: 11,605.66–11,621.99). CXL significantly reduced the number of required corneal transplants, with a mean of 968.8 (95% CI: 959–978.58) fewer transplants per 10,000 eyes treated. The variable with the most significant impact on the incremental net monetary benefit was the duration of the CXL effect. This study concluded that corneal CXL is a highly cost-effective intervention for progressive keratoconus within the Brazilian SUS. These findings advocate for broader accessibility to this vision-saving treatment within the SUS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Economics and Efficiency in Healthcare)
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18 pages, 3225 KiB  
Article
A Spatio-Temporal Analysis of OECD Member Countries’ Health Care Systems: Effects of Data Missingness and Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression on Inference
by Peter Akioyamen and Mehmet A. Begen
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(13), 6265; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20136265 - 30 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1729
Abstract
Determinants of health care quality and efficiency are of importance to researchers, policy-makers, and public health officials as they allow for improved human capital and resource allocation as well as long-term fiscal planning. Statistical analyses used to understand determinants have neglected to explicitly [...] Read more.
Determinants of health care quality and efficiency are of importance to researchers, policy-makers, and public health officials as they allow for improved human capital and resource allocation as well as long-term fiscal planning. Statistical analyses used to understand determinants have neglected to explicitly discuss how missing data are handled, and consequently, previous research has been limited in inferential capability. We study OECD health care data and highlight the importance of transparency in the assumptions grounding the treatment of data missingness. Attention is drawn to the variation in ordinary least squares coefficient estimates and performance resulting from different imputation methods, and how this variation can undermine statistical inference. We also suggest that parametric regression models used previously are limited and potentially ill-suited for analysis of OECD data due to the inability to deal with both spatial and temporal autocorrelation. We propose the use of an alternative method in geographically and temporally weighted regression. A spatio-temporal analysis of health care system efficiency and quality of care across OECD member countries is performed using four proxy variables. Through a forward selection procedure, medical imaging equipment in a country is identified as a key determinant of quality of care and health outcomes, while government and compulsory health insurance expenditure per capita is identified as a key determinant of health care system efficiency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Economics and Efficiency in Healthcare)
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