Efficiency is one of the central preoccupations of health policy-makers
and managers, and justifiably so. Inefficient care can lead to
unnecessarily poor outcomes for patients, either in terms of their
health, or in their experience of the health system. What is more,
inefficiency anywhere in the system is likely to deny health improvement
to patients who might have been treated if resources had been used
better. Improving efficiency is therefore a compelling policy goal,
especially in systems facing serious resource constraints.
The desire for greater efficiency motivates a great deal of
decision-making, but the routine use of efficiency metrics to guide
decisions is severely lacking. To improve efficiency in the health
system we must first be able to measure it and must therefore ensure
that our metrics are relevant and useful for policy-makers and
managers.
In this book the authors explore the state of the art on efficiency
measurement in health systems and international experts offer insights
into the pitfalls and potential associated with various measurement
techniques. The authors show that: 1) the core idea of efficiency is
easy to understand in principle -- maximizing valued outputs relative to
inputs, but is often difficult to make operational in real-life
situations; 2) there have been numerous advances in data collection and
availability, as well as innovative methodological approaches that give
valuable insights into how efficiently health care is delivered; 3) our
simple analytical framework can facilitate the development and
interpretation of efficiency indicators.
The authors use examples from Europe and around the world to explore how
policy-makers and managers have used efficiency measurement to support
their work in the past, and suggest ways they can make better use of
efficiency measurement in the future.
The study came out of the Observatory's LSE hub. It links to a
forthcoming study offering further insights into how to develop and
interpret policy relevant efficiency metrics and to the earlier volumes
on performance measurement. It will be of considerable use to
policymakers and their advisors, health care regulators, patient
representative groups, managers and researchers.
