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Health Care Demand (health + care_demand)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Characteristics of Medical Surge Capacity Demand for Sudden-impact Disasters

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2006
Samuel J. Stratton MD
Objectives To describe the characteristics of the demand for medical care during sudden-impact disasters, focusing on local U.S. communities and the initial phases of sudden-impact disasters. Methods Established databases and published reports were used as data sources. Data were obtained to describe the baseline capacity of the U.S. medical system. Information for the initial phases of a sudden-impact disaster was sought to allow for characterization of the length of time before a U.S. community can expect arrival of outside assistance, the expected types of medical surge demands, the expected time for the peak in medical-care demand, and the expected health system access points. Results The earliest that outside assistance arrived for a community subject to a sudden-impact disaster was 24 hours, with a range from 24 to 96 hours. After sudden-impact disasters, 84% to 90% of health care demand was for conditions that were managed on an ambulatory basis. Emergency departments (EDs) were the access point for care, with peak demand time occurring within 24 hours. The U.S. emergency care system was functioning at relatively full capacity on the basis of data collected for the study that showed that annually, 90% of EDs were boarding admitted inpatients, and 75% were diverting ambulances. Conclusions As part of planning for sudden-impact disasters, communities should be expected to sustain medical services for 24 hours, and up to 96, before arrival of external resources. For effective medical surge-capacity response during sudden-impact disasters, there should be a priority for emergency medical care with a focus on ambulatory injuries and illnesses. [source]

Incentive effects in the demand for health care: a bivariate panel count data estimation

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 4 2003
Regina T. Riphahn
This paper contributes in three dimensions to the literature on health care demand. First, it features the first application of a bivariate random effects estimator in a count data setting, to permit the efficient estimation of this type of model with panel data. Second, it provides an innovative test of adverse selection and confirms that high-risk individuals are more likely to acquire supplemental add-on insurance. Third, the estimations yield that in accordance with the theory of moral hazard, we observe a much lower frequency of doctor visits among the self-employed, and among mothers of small children. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

COSTLY AGEING OR COSTLY DEATHS?

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 1 2006
UNDERSTANDING HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURE USING AUSTRALIAN MEDICARE PAYMENTS DATA
In health economics and health care planning, the observation that age cohorts are generally positively correlated with per capita health expenditures is often cited as evidence that population ageing is the main driver of health care costs. Several recent studies, however, challenge this view. Zweifel et al. (1999) and Felder et al. (2000), for example, find that individuals incur the highest health care costs around the time before their death. Thus, they argue, it is proximity to death rather than ageing that is driving health care costs. This paper examines the issue by estimating a two-equation exact aggregation demand model using Australian Medicare payments data over an eight-year period (1994,2001). The results suggest that once proximity to death is accounted for, population ageing has either a negligible or even negative effect on health care demand. [source]

The compatibility of future doctors' career intentions with changing health care demands

MEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 6 2006
Marjolein A G Van Offenbeek
Background, In the Netherlands the medical education system is in the process of being transformed to establish a more demand-oriented health care system. This transformation may entail the occupational restructuring of the medical profession. Meanwhile, on the supply side, the career intentions of future doctors are also changing. Objectives, We aimed to categorise medical students' prevailing career intentions and to examine to what extent newly proposed medical occupations that may be part of the transformation process correspond with these career intentions. Methods, We carried out expert interviews and a feedback round to gain input for a survey among students. From the demand perspective, 11 experts proposed non-traditional medical occupations and evaluated these on the basis of job characteristics relevant to a doctor's career choice. Subsequently, students from 5 universities filled out a questionnaire to rate these job characteristics by their importance and the proposed occupations' attractiveness. Results, Four different clusters of career intentions were categorised as patient-oriented expert, career-oriented specialist, lifestyle-oriented generalist, and balance-seeking realist. These clusters differ in terms of the ways in which students feel attracted to the proposed occupations. The career-oriented specialists feel least attracted and the lifestyle-oriented generalists most attracted to the occupations. Discussion, The experts' call for shorter postgraduate programmes to educate patient-oriented doctors partly matches students' career intentions. Most students share the intention of obtaining a direct care position that provides ample task variation, which may explain the appeal of the occupations ,emergency doctor' and ,basic specialist'. The limited interest in specific patient groups suggests a need for more exposure to the occupations linked to these groups. [source]