Articles

Using predicted length of stay to define treatment and model costs in hospitalized adults with serious illness: an evaluation of palliative care

Economic research on hospital palliative care faces major challenges. Observational studies using routine data encounter difficulties because treatment timing is not under investigator control and unobserved p...

Authors: Peter May, Charles Normand, Danielle Noreika, Nevena Skoro and J. Brian Cassel

Which factors increase informal care hours and societal costs among caregivers of people with dementia? A systematic review of Resource Utilization in Dementia (RUD)

Nearly 19 million people across OECD countries are living with dementia, and millions of family caregivers are affected by the disease. The costs of informal care are estimated to represent 40–75% of the total...

Authors: Renira C. Angeles, Line I. Berge, Marie H. Gedde, Egil Kjerstad, Maarja Vislapuu, Nathalie G. Puaschitz and Bettina S. Husebo

Effect of COVID-19 on demand for healthcare in Togo

Demand-side barriers to health care are as important as supply-side factors in deterring patients from obtaining effective treatment during COVID-19. Developing countries, including Togo, have focused on reduc...

Authors: Yaovi Tossou

Assessing direct healthcare costs when restricted to self-reported data: a scoping review

In the absence of electronic health records, analysis of direct healthcare costs often relies on resource utilisation data collected from patient-reported surveys. This scoping review explored the availability...

Authors: Samira B. Jabakhanji, Jan Sorensen, Gintare Valentelyte, Lee Ann Burke, Brendan McElroy and Aileen Murphy

Cost of provision of essential health Services in Public Health Centers of Jimma zone, Southwest Ethiopia; a provider perspective, the pointer for major area of public expenditure

Provision of up-to-date cost information is crucial for not only addressing knowledge gap on the cost of essential health services (EHS) but also budgeting, allocating adequate resources and improving institut...

Authors: Diriba Feyisa, Kiddus Yitbarek and Teferi Daba

The addition of neoadjuvant pertuzumab for the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer: a cost estimate with real-world data

Breast cancer (BC) is largely prevalent worldwide. HER2-positive BC account for roughly 20–25% of all BC cases and has an overall survival lower than other BC. Innovation on BC therapeutics is a constant, but ...

Authors: Andreia Borges, Filipa Pereira, Patrícia Redondo, Luís Antunes, Cláudia Vieira, Pedro Antunes, Maria José Bento, Susana Sousa, José Machado Lopes, Francisco Rocha-Gonçalves, Joaquim Abreu de Sousa, Deolinda Sousa Pereira and Marina Borges

Financial balance of home nursing care providers in the Czech Republic

To enable people to live in old age in their own homes often requires specialised home care services. Despite the high importance of these services, the finance of home nursing care (HNC) is still under-invest...

Authors: Petr Fiala, Iva Holmerova, Tomas Ruda and Michal Steffl

Cost analysis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): a systematic review

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a treatable disease with a high prevalence, and high morbidity associated with significant socioeconomic costs.

Authors: Celia Gutiérrez Villegas, María Paz-Zulueta, Manuel Herrero-Montes, Paula Parás-Bravo and María Madrazo Pérez

Distributional health and financial consequences of increased cigarette tax in Iran: extended cost-effectiveness analysis

To assess the potential impact of a tax-induced cigarette price increase on financial and health outcomes by different socioeconomic groups.

Authors: Behzad Raei, Sara Emamgholipour, Amirhossein Takian, Mehdi Yaseri, Ghahreman Abdoli and Ahad Alizadeh

Using point-of-care diagnostic testing for improved antibiotic prescription: an economic model

Antibiotics have been overprescribed to treat infectious diseases and have generated antimicrobial resistances that reduce their effectiveness. Following the rationale behind the new paradigm of personalized m...

Authors: F. Antoñanzas, C. A. Juárez-Castelló and R. Rodríguez-Ibeas

Multiple effects health economic evaluation of the Ahead of The Game Study for mental health promotion in sporting club communities

This study evaluates the Ahead Of The Game (AOTG) mental health promotion strategy for adolescent males relative to usual practice in team based sporting club community settings, allowing for joint incremental...

Authors: Simon Eckermann, Nikki McCaffrey, Utsana Tonmukayakul, Christian Swann and Stewart Vella

Economic evaluation of process utility: elucidating preferences for a non-invasive procedure to treat restenosis

In health economic evaluation, utility associated with a health state is outcome-oriented and usually measured using the QALY methodology. Even though there is consistent evidence of utility not only being der...

Authors: Maria V. Aviles-Blanco

Decisions of persons, the pharmaceutical industry, and donors in disease contraction and recovery assuming virus mutation

The article develops an eight-period game between N persons and a pharmaceutical company. The choices of a donor and Nature are parametric.

Authors: Kjell Hausken and Mthuli Ncube

Overcoming COVID-19 in China despite shortcomings of the public health system: what can we learn?

The COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Although there are some doubts about the reporting of cases and deaths in China, it seems that this country was able to control the epidemic mor...

Authors: Mei Mei Wang and Steffen Fleßa

Impact of the 2014 coinsurance rate revision for the elderly on healthcare resource utilization in Japan

Cost sharing, including copayment and coinsurance, is often used to contain medical expenditure by decreasing unnecessary or excessive use of healthcare resources. Previous studies in Japan have reported the e...

Authors: Takumi Nishi, Toshiki Maeda, Susumu Katsuki and Akira Babazono

Using the MEAT VBP Framework to analyse and understand the value of surgical gloves: an explanatory case study

Value-based healthcare is being extensively piloted, scaled and implemented by healthcare providers and systems around the world. However, the ability of the healthcare supply chain function to strategically c...

Authors: Benedict Stanberry, Gerhard Bothma and Katie Harrison

Economic burden of lung cancer in Turkey: a cost of illness study from payer perspective

This study was designed to estimate economic burden of lung cancer in Turkey from payer perspective based on expert panel opinion on practice patterns in clinical practice.

Authors: Irfan Cicin, Ergun Oksuz, Nuri Karadurmus, Simten Malhan, Mahmut Gumus, Ulku Yilmaz, Levent Cansever, Halit Cinarka, Erdogan Cetinkaya, Murat Kiyik and Ahmet Ozet

Convergence in public health expenditure across the Sub-Saharan African countries: does club convergence matter?

Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries that currently face enormous healthcare challenges have implemented national health policies focusing on regional or international health commitments. These health commitmen...

Authors: Ousmane Traoré

Distributed education enables distributed economic impact: the economic contribution of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to communities in Canada

Medical schools with distributed or regional programs encourage people to live, work, and learn in communities that may be economically challenged. Local spending by the program, staff, teachers, and students ...

Authors: John C. Hogenbirk, David R. Robinson and Roger P. Strasser

Economic evaluation of HIV testing options for low-prevalence high-income countries: a systematic review

This study reviewed the economic evidence of rapid HIV testing versus conventional HIV testing in low-prevalence high-income countries; evaluated the methodological quality of existing economic evaluations of ...

Authors: Olanrewaju Medu, Adegboyega Lawal, Doug Coyle and Kevin Pottie

Investing preventive care and economic development in ageing societies: empirical evidences from OECD countries

The proportion of the elderly aged 65 years old or above will reach 16% in 2050 worldwide. Early investment in effective prevention would generally reduce the morbidity, complication, functional disability, an...

Authors: Fuhmei Wang and Jung-Der Wang

Analytical methods to assess the impacts of activity-based funding (ABF): a scoping review

Activity-Based Funding (ABF) has been implemented across many countries as a means to incentivise efficient hospital care delivery and resource use. Previous reviews have assessed the impact of ABF implementat...

Authors: Gintare Valentelyte, Conor Keegan and Jan Sorensen

Mendelian randomization: estimation of inpatient hospital costs attributable to obesity

Mendelian Randomization is a type of instrumental variable (IV) analysis that uses inherited genetic variants as instruments to estimate causal effects attributable to genetic factors. This study aims to estim...

Authors: Katherine Dick, John E. Schneider, Andrew Briggs, Pascal Lecomte, Stephane A. Regnier and Michael Lean

Can financial payments incentivize short-term smoking cessation in orthopaedic trauma patients? Evidence from a discrete choice experiment

Smoking increases the risk of complications and related costs after an orthopaedic fracture. Research in other populations suggests that a one-time payment may incentivize smoking cessation. However, little is...

Authors: Dana Alkhoury, Jared Atchison, Antonio J. Trujillo, Kimberly Oslin, Katherine P. Frey, Robert V. O’Toole, Renan C. Castillo and Nathan N. O’Hara

Preferences of patients with asthma or COPD for treatments in pulmonary rehabilitation

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) aims to improve disease control in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. However, the success of PR-programs depends on the patients’ participatio...

Authors: Kathrin Damm, Heidrun Lingner, Katharina Schmidt, Ines Aumann-Suslin, Heike Buhr-Schinner, Jochen van der Meyden and Konrad Schultz

Time-to-event analysis in economic evaluations: a comparison of modelling methods to assess the cost-effectiveness of transplanting a marginal quality kidney

Economic-evaluations using decision analytic models such as Markov-models (MM), and discrete-event-simulations (DES) are high value adds in allocating resources. The choice of modelling method is critical beca...

Authors: Sameera Senanayake, Nicholas Graves, Helen Healy, Keshwar Baboolal, Adrian Barnett and Sanjeewa Kularatna

Note from the editor, January 2021

Authors: J.-Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg, Sebastian Braun and Jan Zeidler

Commentary: on the effects of health expenditure on infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from panel data analysis

This commentary assesses critically the published article in the Health Economics Review. 2020; 10 (1), 1–9. It explains the effects of health expenditure on infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa using a panel d...

Authors: Mwoya Byaro

Development of a pharmacoeconomic registry: an example using hormonal contraceptives

Disease-specific registries, documenting costs and probabilities from pharmacoeconomic studies along with health state utility values from quality-of-life studies could serve as a resource to guide researchers...

Authors: Annesha White, Meenakshi Srinivasan, La Marcus Wingate, Samuel Peasah and Marc Fleming

Arrangements with the NHS for providing healthcare services: do they improve financial performance of private for-profit hospitals in Spain?

In developed countries around the world there is a trend to enhance the public-private collaboration in healthcare. In Spain, a decentralized country with a NHS funded with taxes and universal coverage, commis...

Authors: María Victoria Ruiz-Mallorquí, Inmaculada Aguiar-Díaz and Beatriz González- López Valcárcel

“Top-down bottom-up” estimation of per capita cost of new-born care interventions in four regions of Ghana: beyond implementation to scalability and sustainability

Limited financial, human and material health resources coupled with increasing demand for new-born care services require efficiency in health systems to maximize the available sources for improved health outco...

Authors: Robert Kaba Alhassan, Edward Nketiah-Amponsah, Nana A. Y. Twum-Danso, John Bawa, Williams Kwarah, Sebnem Ucer and Abdul Fatawu Ibn Abass

Telemedical emergency services: central or decentral coordination?

Teleemergency doctors support ambulance cars at the emergency site by means of telemedicine. Currently, each district has its own teleemergency doctor office (decentralized solution). This paper analyses the a...

Authors: Steffen Fleßa, Rebekka Suess, Julia Kuntosch, Markus Krohn, Bibiana Metelmann, Joachim Paul Hasebrook, Peter Brinkrolf, Klaus Hahnenkamp, Dorothea Kohnen and Camilla Metelmann

What drives different treatment choices? Investigation of hospital ownership, system membership and competition

Differences in ownership types have attracted considerable interest because of policy implications. Moreover, competition in hospital markets is promoted to reduce health care spending. However, the effects of...

Authors: Esra Eren Bayindir and Jonas Schreyögg

Grocery food taxes and U.S. county obesity and diabetes rates

Grocery food taxes represent a stable tax revenue stream for state and municipal government during times of adverse economic shocks such as that observed under the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic....

Authors: Lingxiao Wang, Yuqing Zheng, Steven Buck, Diansheng Dong and Harry M. Kaiser

Can adaptive clinical trials help to solve the productivity crisis of the pharmaceutical industry? - a scenario analysis

The productivity of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) investments is declining due to high failure rates in clinical research. Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledged that ...

Authors: Jörg Mahlich, Arne Bartol and Srirangan Dheban

Health economic evaluations comparing faecal microbiota transplantation with antibiotics for treatment of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection: a systematic review

Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is increasingly being used in the treatment of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (rCDI). Health economic evaluations may support decision-making regarding the im...

Authors: Lianna Hede Hammeken, Simon Mark Dahl Baunwall, Christian Lodberg Hvas and Lars Holger Ehlers

Practices of decision making in priority setting and resource allocation: a scoping review and narrative synthesis of existing frameworks

Due to growing expenditures, health systems have been pushed to improve decision-making practices on resource allocation. This study aimed to identify which practices of priority setting and resource allocatio...

Authors: Brayan V. Seixas, François Dionne and Craig Mitton

Micro-costing in health and medicine: a critical appraisal

Concerns about rising health care costs require rigorous economic study to inform clinical and policy decision-making. Micro-costing is a cost estimation methodology employing detailed resource utilization and...

Authors: Xiao Xu, Christina M. Lazar and Jennifer Prah Ruger

Custom-made health-care: an experimental investigation

Physicians’ financial interests might conflict with the best service to patients. It is essential to gain a thorough understanding of the effect of remuneration systems on physician behaviour.

Authors: Claudia Keser, Claude Montmarquette, Martin Schmidt and Cornelius Schnitzler

Application study of the EQ-5D-5L in oncology: linking self-reported quality of life of patients with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer to clinical data from a German tumor registry

The EQ-5D-5L questionnaire is used in oncology to generate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) weights and corresponding health states. The purpose was to explore the relationship between demographic and cl...

Authors: Kathrin Borchert, Christian Jacob, Natalie Wetzel, Martina Jänicke, Egbert Eggers, Annette Sauer, Norbert Marschner, Julia Altevers, Thomas Mittendorf and Wolfgang Greiner

Systematic review and validity assessment of methods used in discrete choice experiments of primary healthcare professionals

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) have been used to measure patient and healthcare professionals preferences in a range of settings internationally. Using DCEs in primary care is valuable for determining how ...

Authors: Gregory Merlo, Mieke van Driel and Lisa Hall

Comparison of the cost of illness of primary liver cancer between Japan and Taiwan

Primary liver cancer (PLC) is the fifth and second leading cause of death in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. The aim of this study was to compare the economic burden of PLC between the two countries using the ...

Authors: Yinghui Wu, Kunichika Matsumoto, Ya-Mei Chen, Yu-Chi Tung, Tzu-Ying Chiu and Tomonori Hasegawa

Nonparametric estimation of a primary care production function in urban Brazil

The Brazilian public health system is one of the largest health systems in the world, with a mandate to deliver medical care to more than 200 million Brazilians. The objective of this study is to estimate a pr...

Authors: Bruno Wichmann and Roberta Wichmann

Factors related to excessive out-of-pocket expenditures among the ultra-poor after discontinuity of PBF: a cross-sectional study in Burkina Faso

Measuring progress towards financial risk protection for the poorest is essential within the framework of Universal Health Coverage. The study assessed the level of out-of-pocket expenditure and factors associ...

Authors: Yvonne Beaugé, Valéry Ridde, Emmanuel Bonnet, Sidibé Souleymane, Naasegnibe Kuunibe and Manuela De Allegri

Economic analysis of sugammadex versus neostigmine for reversal of neuromuscular blockade for laparoscopic surgery in China

Neuromuscular blockade and pneumoperitoneum (PP) are important factors to ensure successful laparoscopic surgery. However, residual neuromuscular blockade (rNMB) and PP are associated with many unfavorable com...

Authors: Maodong Ren, Ying Wang, Yan Luo, Jia Fang, Yongji Lu and Jianwei Xuan

Costing of helicopter emergency services- a strategic simulation based on the example of a German rural region

Helicopter emergency services (HEMS) are of increasing relevance for emergency medical services (EMS) of developed countries. Despite the known cost intensity of HEMS, there is only very limited knowledge of i...

Authors: Johann Röper, Markus Krohn, Steffen Fleßa and Karl-Christian Thies

The effect of a mystery shopper scheme on prescribing behavior in primary care: Results from a field experiment

Health care systems in many countries are characterized by limited availability of provider performance data that can be used to design and implement welfare improving reforms in the health sector. We question...

Authors: Roland Cheo, Ge Ge, Geir Godager, Rugang Liu, Jian Wang and Qiqi Wang

Considering the societal perspective in economic evaluations: a systematic review in the case of depression

Depressive disorders are associated with a high burden of disease. However, due to the burden posed by the disease on not only the sufferers, but also on their relatives, there is an ongoing debate about which...

Authors: Juliane Andrea Duevel, Lena Hasemann, Luz María Peña-Longobardo, Beatriz Rodríguez-Sánchez, Isaac Aranda-Reneo, Juan Oliva-Moreno, Julio López-Bastida and Wolfgang Greiner

Effects of health insurance on patient demand for physician services

In recent years, policymakers have sought to reduce health disparities between the insured and uninsured through a federal health insurance expansion policy; however, disparities continue to persist among the ...

Authors: Jerome Dugan

Is greater generic competition also linked to lower drug prices in South Korea?

Although the association between the price of generic drugs and market competitiveness has been explored in various high-income countries, this association has not been empirically evaluated in South Korea. We...

Authors: Kyung-Bok Son