ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Hospitals are the main axis of health-care reforms or national health plans; therefore, accurate recognition of hospital costs based on operational indexes to these plans is necessary. The impact of implementing national health plans on the performance of health systems is ambiguous and misleading; therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the impact of Healthcare Reform Plan (HRP) on the micro level (e.g., educational or university hospitals). METHODS: This study was a descriptive retrospective study that research variables are checked in 1 year before and mean of 3 years after implementation of HRP by self-administrated checklist in selected public-educational hospitals covered by the medical universities in Tehran. The final analysis of the data was performed using cost-performance ratio and independent t-test for comparing the variables' changes before and after HRP. RESULTS: Unlike adjusted hospitalization costs, most operational indexes were not significant. The per capita cost adjusted of hospitalization in first and mean of 3 years after HRP increased 49.49% and 16.31%, respectively (P < 0.001), the adjusted cost per day was increased by 24.48% and 21.46% (P < 0.001), and adjusted cost per bed was increased 47.06% and 20.07% compared to before HRP (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Given the lack of alignment in adjusted cost changes in exchange for functional indicators, certainly, it cannot be argued that HRP had a favorable or undesirable effect on the hospitals.
ABSTRACT
Coronary artery disease (CAD) has significant social and economic implications. It is necessary to create tools to identify the most cost-effectiveness treatments, which can assist clinicians in their therapeutic decisions so that the maximum possible benefit is reached with the lowest possible cost. Effectiveness must be measured by final treatment goals in which the most effective interventions are those with the lowest costs. This study is aimed to systematically review and compare the studies conducted on the cost-effectiveness of the three coronary artery disease treatment strategies (medical treatment, percutaneous coronary intervention, and coronary artery bypass graft). In this systematic review, the databases NHS Economic Evaluation Database, Embase, MEDLINE, Science Direct, and Scopus were searched for studies on the cost-effectiveness of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared to medical therapy (MT) in patients with coronary artery disease between 1 January 2004 to 30 September 2018. The quality appraisal of the included studies was examined using the Consolidated Health Economics Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement. Out of 186 unique retrievals, 8 studies were included. The results showed that the all studies clearly stated the time horizon of the study and included direct medical costs in their analysis. In addition, in most of the studies, quality-adjusted life years (QALY) were the main outcome used for measuring the effectiveness. The studies reported various ranges of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER); accordingly, the highest ratio was observed in the USA ($212,800) for PCI v MT and the lowest ratio was observed in Brazil ($4403) for CABG v MT. Although the results of the studies were different in terms of a number of aspects, such as the viewpoint of the study, the study horizons, and the costs of expenditure items, they reached similar results. Based on the result of the present study, it seems that each three treatment strategies for CAD yielded improvements in QALY.
