WEEK 7: INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH AND RESOURCES Flashcards
What is cost?
Costs: the value of the resources used to produce something.
What is costing?
Costing: identification, measurement and valuing of resources consumed by an intervention.
What is cost analysis?
Cost analysis is the systematic collection, categorization, and analysis of the costs of program or disease.
Outline different types of costs.
1.Medical costs
*Clinical services, hospitalization, and medications
2.Non‐medical costs
*Transportation or child care expenses incurred because of an illness or disability.
3.Indirect costs, include time lost from work
4.Intangible costs such as pain and suffering.
Outline the types of perspectives.
1.Societal perspective meaning all of society as a whole regardless who pays the costs.
2.An insurer/payer perspective
3.Perspective of an employer
4.Patient or client
What is opportunity cost?
It is the satisfaction or benefit forgone in not being able to obtain some other good - which is also desirable and therefore also provides satisfaction.
The benefit foregone in the best alternative use of the resources.
What is resource allocation?
Resource allocation is the distribution of resources – usually financial - among competing groups of people or programs.
Outline 3 levels of resource allocation in Healthcare.
Level 1:
Allocating resources to healthcare versus other social needs.
Level 2:
Allocating resources within the healthcare sector.
Level 3:
Allocating resources among individual patients.
Why is resource allocation needed?
Because of increasing demand for healthcare services and rising costs to provide those services, countries must choose how to allocate healthcare resources.
Why rising medical costs?
*The aging population is growing.
*More people are living with chronic diseases and disabilities, including AIDS.
What is rationing?
Rationing refers to the conscious decision to exclude certain people from a service or treatment that they need.
conclusion
A societal perspective recognizes that public health seeks to improve the health and well‐being of the whole population.
Since resources are scarce relative to needs, the use of resources in one way prevents their use in other ways.
Because of increasing demand for healthcare services and rising costs to provide those services, countries must choose how to allocate healthcare resources.
