Cost Effectiveness Analysis

The Commission assessed priority levels on three factors: 1) the expected net benefit received from the treatment, 2) the anticipated length of this benefit, and 3) the costs directly associated with providing the service1. The costs were compared to the benefit of receiving the given service on a patient’s overall quality of life1. This goal was seen as an ideal scenario for those on the committee to render as many services as possible with the best health-cost ratio. The reasoning behind CEA and its benefits is based on the theory of utilitarianism.

In a world of increasing competition for health resources economic evaluations are essential to provide evidence to decision makers that allows them to make appropriate decisions regarding the best use of those resources (Cohen and Reynolds, 2008; Williams et al., 2008). Critical appraisal is the means by which the validity of this research is assessed and is essential for true evidence based practice, and decision-making (Burls, 2009; Ciliska, Thomas and Buffett, 2008).

The AHRQ organization has several portfolios’ that are funded and supports research projects. Such portfolios are information technology, health patient safety, prevention and care management, and value portfolios. Within these portfolio’s, grants are there to fund new projects that relate to each category. Within each portfolio, research has been started and effectiveness of these projects is underway. Some clinical research projects are a set of priority conditions of importance to the Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP programs. Projected initiatives are to improve quality of care. The Value portfolio finds ways to reduce unnecessary cost and waste while maintaining or improving quality without adding cost which is a critical, national need (2012, p.5).

This article was quite different from the previous articles I have read in the class as it poses methods for physicians to analyze treatment benefits. Similar to what we learned in class, the article discusses different types of economic analysis as well as the different types of costs associated with treatments. Although I think that considering economic analysis is a great way for physicians to provide the most beneficial treatment, I

Medicare focuses on medical acute care such as doctors visit, hospital stays and drugs. Also, it focuses on short-term services such as physical therapy after a fall or stroke (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2013). Medicare covers services for long term care such as short stay in a skilled nursing facility, home heath services and hospice/respite care, but it does not cover costs for personal/custodial care such as help with bathing, dressing, eating, etc.. In 2015, Forbes reported that Medicare will pay for some of the costs only if a patient meets the following conditions:

The new intervention that I would like to implement at Huther Doyle is meditation. Using meditation and mindfulness will help patients be able to center themselves and provide a time for centering in their hectic lives. Normal group sessions are two hours long. When implementing meditation the same length of group time will be necessary for billing purposes. The two hour session will be distributed with the first 30 minutes consisting of meditation and the last hour and a half consisting of discussion. The meditation will be lead by the primary group counselor or myself. The

The cost-effectiveness analysis is a method used to examine in contrast the costs and results of two or more interventions with the same objective. The cost-effectiveness analysis is beneficial for correlating responses when dealing with or discussing similar health issues in a natural unit such as deaths, sickness, prevention of burns, and the monetary costs of these interventions.

A cost-benefit analysis is a formal way of analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of one thing as opposed to another where the results are in dollar-and-cents. In addition, a cost-benefit analysis allows people to make better decisions.11 A cost-benefit analysis is different from a program evaluation. A program evaluation will answer the question: Does this program work? The cost-benefit analysis, however, ask, does the dollar value of a program’s demonstrated level of success exceed the cost of the program? Additionally, how does one program’s economic bottom line compare to another similarly analyzed program? A cost-benefit analysis of juvenile re-entry and prevention programs involves estimating the dollar value of the reduction in recidivism.11 An efficient cost-benefit analysis seeks to determine the long-run cost and benefits of one program over another program and offers policy alternatives.

Against a background of increasing demands on limited resources, health economics is exerting an influence on decision making at all levels of health care. Health economics seeks to facilitate decision making by offering an explicit decision making framework based on the principle of efficiency. It is not the only consideration but it is an important one and practitioners will need to have an understanding of its basic principles and how it can impact on clinical decision making.

Leslie Pal discusses the ways in which a government or private corporation goes about evaluating a particular policy or program in order to ensure they are only putting forward something that has enough benefits to outweigh the costs. Pal stipulates that evaluating a policy or program is incredibly crucial as it determines whether it has been successful, whether the outlined objectives have been met, and what could be done to make it better in the future (Pal 2009, p. 271).

As a supervisor in the U.S. Navy, I have always taken the initiative to evaluate workplace processes and procedures that can be improved for optimal effectiveness and efficiency in accomplishing organizational objectives. For example, as the work center supervisor in a military hospital pharmacy, I recognized pharmacy workload data used to capture medical expense & performance reporting was absent or incorrectly counted. I implemented quality management procedures to identify deficient system codes which were corrected. This action increased the capture of pharmacy workload data by 269%, enabling expense reporting and product cost management to be properly reported for Military Health System decision-making and performance

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are over 400 electrocutions in the United States each year, and of those about 100 are children. In 2011, an estimated 21,300 reported U.S. non-confined home structure fires involving electrical distribution or lighting equipment resulted in 295 civilian deaths, 840 civilian injuries, and $822 million in direct property damage. These numbers are very alarming as no child nor home deserve to be harmed, especially from a cause that can be prevented. These statistics and our desire to eliminate electrical problems as a whole is what drove us to developing our product, Socket Stop.

Efficiency: Efficiency measures whether healthcare services are being utilized to get the best esteem for cash. Healthcare can be seen a transitional item, in the feeling of being a way to the end of enhanced health. Efficiency is worried with the connection between asset inputs and either moderate yields or last health results. Although numerous assessments use intermediate as a measure of effectiveness, this can prompt problematic suggestions. Preferably financial assessments ought to concentrate on definite health results.

Cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses are forms of economic evaluation which are useful in health economics for comparing costs and allocating resources. Health economics is widely relevant to governments and the health sector in implementation of new policy, as it concerns the allocation of resources in the context of a limited budget, or 'scarcity'. Economic evaluation is a potential tool for setting priorities in health, though it is only one of many potential criteria, including overall budget and public attitudes and wants. Economic evaluation is already in use in some settings, such as in pharmaceutical company proposals for government subsidisation, but there is room for expansion across the field of

The first step in Cellini and Kee's framework is to determine if the analysis will be cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness. Cost benefit analysis is considered by the authors to be the superior technique (p.496) so that is what will be used. The