1985 Health Care Cost Management Update

Errors in health care management: what do they cost?

BACKGROUND Iatrogenic injuries are relatively common and a potentially avoidable source of morbidity. The economic evaluation of this area has been limited by the lack of good quality national data to provide an estimate of incidence, associated disability, and preventability of iatrogenic injuries. Two recent surveys, the Quality in Australian Health Care Study (QAHCS) and the Utah Colorado St...

Cost and health care benefits of an antimicrobial management programme

Use of antibiotics is directly linked to the development of antimicrobial resistance and to the incidence of hospital-acquired infection, both of which are detrimental to patient outcome and impose a substantial economic burden on health care expenditure. Most antimicrobial use is in the community (80 per cent in the UK). However, most infections with resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resi...

Specialty pharmacy cost management strategies of private health care payers.

BACKGROUND The rate of increase in spending on specialty pharmaceuticals is outpacing by far the rate of increase in spending for other drugs. OBJECTIVE To explore the strategies payers are using in response to challenges related to coverage, cost, clinical management, and access of specialty pharmaceuticals and to describe the potential implications for key stakeholders, including patients, ...

Health care cost containment.

National health expenditures, 1985

Slower price inflation in 1985 translated into slower growth of national health expenditures, but underlying growth in the use of goods and services continued along historic trends. Coupled with somewhat sluggish growth of the gross national product, this adherence to trends pushed the share of our Nation's output accounted for by health spending to 10.7 percent. Some aspects of health spending...