Administrative panel data on NSW nurses covering the 90s are used to address several trends in the nursing workforce: the attrition and ageing of nurses, the hours of work in nursing, the allocation of the nursing workforce across job premises in particular across the public and private sectors,...

Many countries, including Australia, regulate the price consumers pay for pharmaceuticals. In this paper, the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is modelled as a multi-stage game played between the regulator and pharmaceutical firms. Conditions are derived under which vertically...

The research evidence on the relationships between patient throughput and costs and outcomes indicate that, for cardiac and vascular surgery, outcomes are better in units with high rates of patient activity. However, the gains to increasing throughput are most substantial at rates of activity...

Objectives: The Medicare Safety Net Policy was introduced in March 2004 to provide financial relief for those Australians who face high out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for outpatient medical services. This study evaluates the extent to which out-of-pocket costs have fallen since the introduction of...

This discussion paper provides an introduction to the estimation of benefits in economic evaluation. The concept of benefits, as something worth making a sacrifice to obtain, is explained. The issue of what the benefits of health care is discussed. Methods for the identification of benefits are...

Limits on health care resources mean that resource allocation decisions should be guided by considerations of costs in relation to benefits. A method of economic evaluation, (cost utility analysis) was used to evaluate the costs and benefits of a physiotherapy outpatients department. The quality...

An evaluation of the Fractured Hip Management Program was conducted, in order to assess its cost effectiveness relative to treatment of these patients without the program. A before-and-after study design was used to identify the impact of the program on the length of hospital stay and outcome,...

Structural and micro-economic reforms have been recommended for hospitals as part of an overall scheme of health care reform. One of the recommended reforms, clinical budgeting, is a health services adaptation of transfer pricing, which is used routinely in commercial enterprises. It involves...