Background Public hospitals have experienced budget constraints but as demand for admissions has been growing at the same time, occupancy levels have been increasing. As emergency and urgent admissions are given priority, the effect has been not just longer waiting times and larger waiting lists...

In this report we examine an issue central to the creation of the NSW Drug Court: namely its cost-effectiveness, compared with conventional sanctions, in reducing drug-related crime. We were particularly fortunate in undertaking this evaluation, to receive the support and cooperation of the Drug...

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...

This paper tests empirically for moral hazard in a system based on demand-side subsidies. In the Netherlands, demand-side subsidies were introduced in 1996. Clients receive a cash benefit to purchase the type of home care (housework, personal care, support with mobility, organisational tasks or...

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...

Nursing shortages are commonly observed features of hospital systems in Australia, Europe and the United States. To date there has been very little research on the effects of hospital characteristics on the retention of the nursing staff. In this paper we match individual data on registered...

The topic of this paper is whether it is possible, given the current state of knowledge and technology, to design the appropriate market structure for managed competition. The next section reviews market failure in the private health insurance market. The subsequent two sections describe the...

The Oregon Experiment is an attempt to provide universal access to health care while achieving budgetary caps on expenditure. The appeal of the experiment lies in its explicit approach to rationing health care within a framework of cost effectiveness analysis and its involvement of the community...