Is there an universal method for measuring efficiency in medical care? I'm not looking for a defense of New Public Management or whatever the latest fad in western welfare societies is. But some kind of statistical method open for tweaking.
>>1551807
>Measuring medical efficiency using economic models?
Why not? but don't try to measure economic efficiency using economic models.
They're actually trying to implement a system like this starting 2017. They will give random surveys to random patients, and a healthcare professionals pay will be adjusted based on these surveys. It's going to be a wildly innefective system that screws millions of people... think about a druggy trying to come in trying to get free drugs, getting denied, and then getting one of these surveys.
>>1551807
Life expectancy vs total healthcare spending.
The US btw is worse in this regard than every country with 'socialist' healthcare systems.
>>1552069
This is a shit method. Life expectancy varies based on factors not relevant to healthcare.
OP, I write analytical software for patient safety and quality in healthcare. If such a method existed, we would use it, and the government would require hospitals to use it so they could stiff them on payments. It does not. The concept of efficiency has baked into it value judgments about what the correct outcome and the value of the costs in the first place, and then usually goes on to ignore any non-monetary value. What if one culture has a preference for doing everything possible to buy a few more days of life? Ignored.
There are huge dataset variance issues in these kinds of measurements. A L1 Trauma hospital on the border of a gang-ridden borough is going to have wildly different outcomes than a rural hospital. How do you compare their efficiency? Proponents of national dick-waving and heavy governance would have you believe that you can ignore this variance by just aggregating up to the national level. They are wrong. Aggregation does not "solve" unequal circumstance, it hides it.
That said, CMS (ie Medicare) has hospitals report Core Measures, which they use to ballpark the quality of care at an institution and penalize their CMS reimbursements on that basis. That's the closest thing to universal you're going to get, and even that is only relevant inside the US. Other countries might do similar things, but it won't be identical and so accurate comparisons cannot be made cross-border.
Note: most of my experience is with hospitals and similar institutions, but the same basic problems exist when gathering data from primary care, dentistry, pharma, etc.
>>1552814
I see.
>>1552814
Have thought a bit more on the issue.
Is there a general method to optimize medical care yet steering clear of diminishing returns?