Health Workforce Accounts Quiz

Sustainable Health Economy: Module Recap

• This module recap covers various aspects of sustainable health economy, including historical and political influences, economic perspectives, health care as an economic good, health information systems, and public-private roles in healthcare.

L1: Health Economy, Historical and Political Influences on Health Care Reform

• Health systems aim to improve health and health equity, using resources efficiently and fairly.
• Sustainable health systems minimize negative environmental impacts, benefiting current and future generations.
• Limited resources and their allocation are crucial components for reform.

L2: Economic Perspective, Perfect Markets, and Market Failure in Health Care

• Resource allocation involves opportunity costs.
• Efficiency (allocative and productive) and equity are important considerations in perfect markets.
• Market failure can arise due to monopolies, information asymmetry, externalities, and public goods.

L3: Health Care as an Economic Good and Demand for Health Care

• Demand for health care is derived from the demand for health itself.
• Demand elasticities (price and income) influence health care decisions.
• Social determinants of health significantly impact health care demand.
• Information asymmetry and the principal-agent problem are factors affecting health care demand.
• Supplier-induced demand also influences the demand for health care.

S2 & S3: Health Information Systems & Measuring Health Needs

• Health information systems are essential to aid decision-makers in identifying problems, needs, and making evidence-based decisions on health policy.
• Data availability and quality are critical for optimal allocation of scarce resources.

L4: Public-Private Roles in Health Care

• Market structure (perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly) influences public-private roles in healthcare.
• Economies of scale are present in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.
• Public and private sectors play various roles in healthcare delivery.

L5: Private Sector Involvement in Healthcare Delivery

• Make-or-buy decisions involving transaction costs (ex-ante and ex-post) influence private sector involvement.
• Contracting out, as seen in long-term care in the UK, has implications for savings and quality.

L6: Health Care Financing and Health Insurance

• Health financing systems include tax-based, compulsory social health insurance, private voluntary insurance, and out-of-pocket payments.
• Most countries utilize a mixed system for healthcare financing.
• Moral hazard, adverse selection, and the adverse selection death spiral, and cream-skimming are challenges of health insurance.

L7: Mobilising Extra Resources: Donor Aid and Innovative Financing

• Strengthening health system funding includes reducing debt, mobilizing extra resources, and prioritizing health spending.
• Increasing technical and allocative efficiency in spending for health is important.

L8: Externalities and Public Goods

• Externalities, both positive and negative, influence production and consumption.
• Selfish or caring values influence externalities.
• Public goods are non-rival and non-excludable, requiring collective action for provision.

L9: Setting Priorities and Defining Benefit Packages

• Factors to consider in setting priorities include who should be involved, what criteria should be used for economic evaluation, and consequences measured as lives saved or DALYS and QALYs.
• Establishing essential packages of interventions maximize benefits from healthcare spending.

L10: Prof. Hensher - Ecological Health Economics for a Post-Growth World

• Overconsumption of healthcare, high vs. low quality, has environmental impacts.
• Ecological economics and planetary boundaries should be considered when planning for the post-growth world, and healthcare needs should be evaluated within this context.
• Considerations include minimizing unnecessary demand and supply, significant redistribution, and sustainable financing.

L11: Pharmaceutical Supply Chains and Emergencies

• Regulation ensures the safety, efficacy, and quality of medicines.
• Complex global supply chains are influenced by economics, natural disasters, and social unrest.
• Efforts are made to strengthen local and regional production of critical medicines.

L12: Prof. Pollock - Prioritisation of Medicines and Essential Medicine Lists

• The interplay between trade and public health concerns access to essential medicines should be considered.
• Authorization of medicines based on safety, efficacy, and quality.
• Prioritising medicines through essential medicine lists is linked to treatment guidelines.
• Pharmaceutical markets and market failure, including irrational prescribing, over-treatment, over-consumption, and under-provision of essential medicines, should also be considered.

L13: Health Workforce

• Healthcare workforce supply depends on factors like remuneration, working conditions, and training, while demand is determined by policy makers and payers.
• Cost-effectiveness and productive efficiency are crucial considerations.
• Task-shifting from physicians to other healthcare providers is a viable strategy.

S2, S3, S7, S8, & S9: More Specific Details

• The presentation includes specific global, regionally and nationally categorized data. This is essential to understand the context and potential challenges.
• The sections S2, S3, S7, S8, and S9, detail aspects about the health system that are very important for student understanding.