ABSTRACT
There are four different conceptual approaches to assess the factors that explain, condition and determine the use of health services. This article discusses the epidemiological, psychosocial, sociological and economical models. The stages and determinants of the health service use process are described and a cross study is made with each of the four models, using a contingency matrix. A holistic analysis is proposed, as a starting point, for the search of a model that will allow the identification of factors that determine the use of health services. This analysis should be used as a conceptual framework for future work on health services utilization
Subject(s)
Humans , Health Services Needs and Demand , Healthcare Financing , Honduras , Quality of Health CareABSTRACT
This paper identifies the trends and recent progress in the generation and reproduction of knowledge on health economic evaluation. Analysis is organized along nine public health action fields, namely: health determinants and predictors, economic value of health, healthcare demand, healthcare supply, microeconomic evaluation of healthcare, healthcare market balance, evaluation of policy instruments, general evaluation of the health system, and healthcare planning, regulation and supervision. Each action field is defined to place the reader in the proper setting and level of analysis. In addition, thematic research topics developed in each action field are proposed and discussed. The generation and reproduction of knowledge on the different action fields was based on the review of the bibliographic databases MEDLINE and LILACS for the 1992-2000 period. Results lead to the conclusion that development and application of economic evaluation of healthcare has been uneven across different countries and that there is a growing increase of applications starting in 1994, the year of initiation of healthcare reform in Latin America
Subject(s)
Humans , Health Care Reform , Health Care Economics and Organizations , Publications , Economics , Healthcare Financing , Health Services Needs and Demand , Research/trends , Health Policy/trendsABSTRACT
This review proposes an analytical method for the development of efficacy indicators, that will allow the integration of diverse technical criteria in the allocation of health resources. Indicators of epidemiological, clinical, organizational and economic efficiency were the four levels of conceptual approach integrated in the analytical framework. The different elements of each level are interrelated to compose an analytical perspective that can be used to guide the mechanisms of resource allocation based on technical criteria. This perspective allows the development of new relevant public health instruments, specially designed for the allocation of resources
Subject(s)
Health Care Rationing/trends , Efficiency, Organizational/trends , Health Services Needs and Demand , Quality Indicators, Health Care , Delivery of Health Care/trendsABSTRACT
Taking into account the information needed to implement the reform of the health sector, we present the results of an analysis of costs and financial consequences of the epidemiological change of four tracer diseases in México, 2 chronic (diabetes and hypertension) and 2 infectious diaseases (pneumonia and diarrhea). The hospital cost-case management of diabetes expected for 1998 represents the same amount of hospital and ambulatory case management of diarrheas and pneumonias for the same year. The internal competition for resource allocations that is expected, among other factors, is one of the results that permits the argument that changes in the epidemiological profile generate relevant financial consequences in the planning and implementing of structural reforms of the health systems, particularly with regards to the patterns of resource allocation for specific health programs