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Introduction
Health Care Economics (HCE) is a branch of economic science focused on studying economic relations and laws, and their impact on meeting the population’s demand for health preservation and promotion. In particular, HCE is concerned with the cost-effectiveness of the production and use of healthcare services. Getzen (2013) believes that practitioners and patients can make better decisions on appropriate interventions by evaluating the inputs (costs) and outputs (sequences or outcomes). The healthcare economy’s goal is to meet the population’s need for medical care while achieving maximum effect at the lowest cost.
Principles of HCE
The healthcare economy is based on certain fundamental principles. For example, Listl et al. (2019) distinguish such as scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost. The scarcity implies that the resources available are insufficient to meet the needs of the population. For example, the number of physicians and their time per patient is limited for effective service delivery. For these reasons, it is necessary to choose ways and means of using resources. Opportunity cost, in this case, becomes an additional economic argument in favor of making a particular decision on the allocation of resources.
There is a different view of the principles of health economics. Getzen (2013) describes these principles more broadly, including supply and demand, cost (benefits and cost-effectiveness analysis), and choices. At the same time, economic choices cover scarcity (limited goods or services), opportunity costs (value of other choice made), and willingness to pay. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) is the valuation of health benefits in monetary terms so that this can be used in a cost-benefit analysis.
Why Do We Need HCE?
Modern doctors should consider their work not only from a professional but also from an economic point of view, understand the financing of medicine, pricing issues, and other crucial aspects. Knowledge of economic laws in practical doctors’ work is needed, since, in market relations, they are sellers of medical services, choosing rational schemes for the examination and treatment of patients. Doctors should be able to assess the cost-effectiveness of their activities (Chen et al., 2016).
Therefore, they must know the concepts of health economics and the need to train specialists in this field. When choices are made in alternative usages of resources, ethical decision-making is mandatory. Practitioners should include a budget in their decision-making process and decide if it is worthwhile spending extra money on a minor improvement in individual treatments, rather than spending on health benefits for the whole community.
The overall costs of medical care are high and produce significant burdens for societies and governments. HCE does not necessarily entail cost reduction but rather is concerned with using resources more effectively (Machalaba et al., 2017). It also contributes to capacity development and more successful investment in the future. All of these factors can improve the delivery of health services and reduce the incidence of various diseases.
What Did You Learn From This Course, And How Will You Apply It To Practice As A Family Nurse Practitioner?
I learned from this course that the prevalence of uncertainty in healthcare on both the demand side and the supply side is significant. Patients are uncertain of their health status and need for health care in the future, which implies that the healthcare demand is irregular from a patient’s perspective.
On the supply side, patients typically do not understand the expected outcomes of various treatments without their providers’ advice. Often, healthcare practitioners cannot predict the results of treatment with certainty. The knowledge received during the course will help me plan various patients’ treatment more effectively and use the necessary resources.
References
Chen, Y., Guzauskas, G. F., Gu, C., Wang, B. C., Furnback, W. E., Xie, G., Dong, P., & Garrison, L. P. (2016). Precision health economics and outcomes research to support precision medicine: big data meets patient heterogeneity on the road to value. Journal of personalized medicine, 6(4), 20-28. Web.
Getzen, T. E. (2013). Health economics and financing. (5th ed.). Web.
Listl, S., Grytten, J. I., & Birch, S. (2019). What is health economics?Community Dent Health, 36(4), 262-274. Web.
Machalaba, C., Smith, K. M., Awada, L., Berry, K., Berthe, F., Bouley, T. A., Bruce, M., Cortiñas Abrahantes, J., El Turabi, A., Feferholtz, Y., Flynn, L., Fournié, G., Andre, A., Grace, D., Jonas, O., Kimani, T., Le Gall, F., Miranda, J. J., Peyre, M., Pinto, J., … Karesh, W. B. (2017). One Health Economics to confront disease threats. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 111(6), 235–237. Web.
Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?
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