The development of a Local Index of Need (LIN) and its use to explain variations in social services expenditure on mental health care in England

Wide variations in deprivation exist across England and it is likely that these variations translate into differences in the need for mental health care. Social Services Departments in England account for a substantial proportion of mental health expenditure. It is important that the distribution of expenditure reflects mental health needs. This paper's aims are to (1) describe the development of a new indicator of mental health needs, (2) use the index to explain variations in social services expenditure on mental health, and (3) compare the index with other established measures of need. A principal components analysis of sociodemographic variables considered to be indicators of need was used to produce four distinct factors for 148 Local Authority areas in England. A weighted sum of these factors was used to produce a single index. (Weights were the proportion of variance explained by each factor.) The index was used in a regression model to explain variations in spending on mental health care and was compared with (1) a model containing the four individual factors, (2) the current method of allocating resources, (3) the index used to allocate resources to primary care trusts, (4) the Mental Illness Needs Index (MINI), (5) four indices of deprivation produced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and (6) the average of the above four indices. The new index could explain 54% of variation, compared with 56% using the current method. The four-factor model could explain 66%, whilst the other models could explain between 37% and 20%. This new index has the advantage that it is not based on previous levels of utilisation or expenditure and yet still explains a comparable amount of variation as the current method. However, a disaggregated model containing individual factors may be preferable.     

我国卫生保健相对价格对人均卫生费用的影响研究：基于ARDL模型的分析

目的:深入研究卫生保健商品或服务的相对价格对人均卫生费用的短期与长期影响。方法:基于1986—2009年宏观时间序列数据,在考虑人均GDP、政府卫生投入等因素前提下,采用自回归分布滞后模型(ARDL)与误差修正模型(ECM)进行分析。结果与结论:⑴卫生保健商品相对价格对于人均实际卫生费用的影响要明显大于卫生保健服务相对价格和政府卫生投入比例增长率的影响;⑵相对于其他消费品,卫生保健商品相对价格的持续下降会促使人均实际卫生费用增长率也呈现下降趋势;卫生保健服务相对价格的下降可能会刺激人们卫生保健服务需求,提高实际人均卫生费用的增长率;⑶政府卫生投入比例的上升会导致实际人均卫生费用增长率增加,产生明显的正向效应。     

What accounts for the regional differences in the utilisation of hospitals in Germany?

There are huge regional variations in the utilisation of hospital services in Germany. In 2007 and 2008 the states of Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg had on average just under 38 % fewer hospitalisations per capita than Saxony-Anhalt. We use data from the DRG statistics aggregated at the county level in combination with numerous other data sources (e.g. INKAR Database, accounting data from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Federal Medical Registry, Germany Hospital Directory, population structure per county) to establish the proportion of the observed regional differences that can be explained at county and state levels. Overall we are able to account for 73 % of the variation at state level in terms of observable factors. By far the most important reason for the regional variation in the utilisation of in-patient services is differences in medical needs. Differences in the supply of medical services and the substitutability of outpatient and inpatient treatment are also relevant, but to a lesser extent.     

Health care expenditure in Sweden--an international comparison

This paper analyses health care expenditure in Sweden and compares this with the corresponding expenditure in OECD countries. The definition and measurement problems of health care expenditure are discussed, new figures for the development of health care expenditure are presented and different measures of health care expenditure are provided. We found that health care expenditure has increased by about 20% in constant prices for Sweden between 1980 and 1988, but that health care expenditure as a share of the GDP has dropped during the same period in current prices. Health care expenditure disaggregated on different age groups show for Sweden that in the age group 15-64 years, health care expenditure has not increased in constant prices between 1976 and 1985, but in the oldest age group, health care expenditure has increased considerable during this period. Health care expenditure in Sweden is as high as would be expected, taking into account the degree of economic development and the growth of expenditure during the 80s, and has followed that in comparable OECD countries. However, the relative price is lower, which means that the input of real resources are greater than in other countries.     

REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE UTILISATION OF AMBULATORY SERVICES IN GERMANY

We used an administrative dataset covering approximately 90% of all Germans to investigate the determinants of regional differences in the utilisation of ambulatory services in the year 2008. There are great regional differences in Germany, in GP, specialist and psychotherapist consultations. By means of a regression model taking account of the spatial dependencies of the error terms, we can explain a considerable part of the variation in terms of differences in demography, health status and socio‐economic features. In addition, we made use of data on pollutants, the supply of services and the number of hospital cases as explanatory variables, which all have a significant influence on utilisation but contribute considerably less to explaining the differences. Overall, we are in a position to explain 29–40% of the regional differences in ambulatory case numbers at the level of the 413 counties and 55–70% at the level of the 16 German states (Länder) by observable differences. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The determinants of health care expenditure: testing pooling restrictions in small samples

Health care expenditure has increased substantially in all Western industrialized countries in the last decades. The necessity to contain the increase in health care expenditure has motivated the analysis of its determinants to explain differences across countries and health systems. However, recent studies have questioned the use of cross section data arguing that health systems are too different to allow for such comparisons. In this paper we investigate whether this criticism is really justified. We analyze the variations of health care expenditure in OECD countries relative to income, population aging and technological change. Our analysis is based on pooled cross section data and time series. Firstly, formulating error correction models for individual countries we demonstrate that in almost all cases the investigated variables are cointegrated. Secondly, we use a bootstrap framework for inference and examine whether the influence of explanatory variables is unique across countries. Applying recursive estimation procedures we find evidence for cross country homogeneity during the period 1961-1979. In the last two decades health care dynamics become more and more country specific thus indicating divergence of health systems and the growing importance of country-specific effects in the explanation of differences in health care expenditure.     

基于时间序列数据的北京市卫生筹资水平、构成趋势研究

目的:分析评价北京市基于时间序列的卫生筹资总额、结构变化等。方法:卫生总费用筹资来源法。结果:2000—2016年北京市卫生筹资总额从166.72亿元增长到2 048.99亿元,平均增长速度为13.00%,人均卫生总费用从1 222.65元增长到9 429.73元,卫生总费用占GDP的比重从5.27%增长到7.98%,城乡居民就医负担总体呈下降趋势,但城乡差异较大。结论:北京市卫生总费用变化体现宏观政策变化,社会卫生支出高速增长,政府对卫生筹资贡献的影响力减弱,个人现金卫生支出占总筹资比重下降,城乡居民就医负担有所缓解。建议:保证政府卫生投入的可持续性,规范发展商业健康保险,引导社会资本流入医疗,拓宽社会筹资渠道,控制个人现金卫生支出占比。     

The Effects of Smoking Bans on Self‐Assessed Health: Evidence from Germany

We examine the effects of smoking bans on self‐assessed health in Germany taking into account heterogeneities by smoking status, gender and age. We exploit regional variation in the dates of enactment and dates of enforcement across German federal states. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel, our difference‐in‐differences estimates show that non‐smokers' health improves, whereas smokers report no or even adverse health effects in response to bans. We find statistically significant health improvements especially for non‐smokers living in households with at least one smoker. Non smokers' health improvements materialise largely with the enactment of smoking bans. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

人口老龄化进程中的医疗卫生支出:WHO成员国的经验分析

基于世界卫生组织(WHO)成员国的经验,本文探讨了人口老龄化进程中医疗卫生支出的基本特征和一般规律。研究表明:世界各国医疗卫生水平存在极大的不平衡。随着人口老龄化的加深,医疗卫生支出中政府支出比例趋于上升,而私人卫生支出比例趋于下降。医疗卫生支出占GDP的比例逐步提高,而政府卫生支出占政府总支出比例也趋于提高,人口老龄化进程中政府在医疗卫生支出中将承担更重要的责任。而且,在政府卫生支出中,医疗保障支出比例趋于提高,并将成为政府卫生支出越来越重要的部分。当一国进入老龄化社会后,医疗卫生支出速度将会递增,经济发展和政府财政将承受越来越重的医疗支出负担。"未富先老"的中国面临着医疗卫生支出急剧增长的严峻挑战,这应该成为医疗卫生体制改革关注的议题。     

State health expenditure accounts: building blocks for state health spending analysis

The dynamics of financing health care among various levels of government and the private sector are rapidly changing; structural relationships among health care providers are also being altered. These changes are placing increased importance on State-level expenditure estimates that will be instrumental in measuring the differential impact of Federal policies and State-specific initiatives on individual States. This article presents personal health care expenditures (PHCE) for 1980-93. Statistics show wide variation in level and rate of growth of regional spending per person. These statistics also quantify differences in both the percent of health care costs in each State borne by Medicare and Medicaid and in the proportion of each State's economy devoted to the provision of health care.     

A multilevel analysis on the determinants of regional health care expenditure: a note

Health care in most countries is a rather “local good” for which the fiscal decentralization theory applies and heterogeneity is the result. In order to address the issue of multijurisdictional health care in estimating income elasticity, we constructed a unique sample using data for 110 regions in eight Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 1997. We estimated this sample data with a multilevel hierarchical model. In doing this, we tried to identify two sources of random variation: within- and between-country variation. The basic purpose was to find out whether the different relationships between health care spending and the explanatory variables are country specific. We concluded that to take into account the degree of fiscal decentralization within countries in estimating income elasticity of health expenditure proves to be important. Two plausible reasons lie behind this: (a) where there is decentralization to the regions, policies aimed at emulating diversity tend to increase national health care expenditure and (b) without fiscal decentralization, central monitoring of finance tends to reduce regional diversity and therefore decrease national health expenditure. The results of our estimation do seem to validate both these points.

北京市医改三年卫生总费用分析

目的：分析2009-2011年北京市卫生筹资水平、结构及变化趋势.方法：利用筹资来源法核算卫生总费用,卫生费用评价方法进行数据分析.结果：2009-2011年,北京市卫生总费用从689.60亿元增长到977.26亿元,年均增长12.42％,人均卫生总费用年均增长4.82％;城乡居民个人现金卫生支出占可支配收入（纯收入）及占消费性支出的比重均呈下降趋势;社会医疗保障经费年均增长19.36％,占卫生总费用比重增加5.44％.结论：医改三年政府对卫生投入力度加大,卫生筹资结构更加合理;社会医疗保障范围不断扩大,实现城乡居民全覆盖,医疗保障经费增长迅速;居民就医负担呈下降趋势,但城乡就医负担差异明显.建议：扩大卫生筹资渠道,深入分析卫生筹资差异存在的原因.     

The effect of health care expenditure on patient outcomes: Evidence from English neonatal care

The relationship between health care expenditure and health outcomes has been the subject of recent academic inquiry in order to inform cost‐effectiveness thresholds for health technology assessment agencies. Previous studies in public health systems have relied upon data aggregated at the national or regional level; however, there remains debate about whether the supply side effect of changes to expenditure are identifiable using data at this level of aggregation. We use detailed patient data derived from electronic neonatal records across England along with routinely available cost data to estimate the effect of changes to patient expenditure on clinical health outcomes in a well‐defined patient population. A panel of 32 neonatal intensive care units for the period 2009–2013 was constructed. Accounting for the potential endogeneity of expenditure a £100 increase in the cost per intensive care cot day (sample average cost: £1,127) is estimated to reduce the risk of mortality of 0.38 percentage points (sample average mortality: 11.0%) in neonatal intensive care. This translates into a cost per life saved in neonatal intensive care of approximately £420,000.     

Risk-adjusted capitation payments: how well do principal inpatient diagnosis-based models work in the German situation? Results from a large data set

Five models of risk adjusters were tested as a (proxy) measure for health status with data from a large German sickness fund. The first two models use standard demographic and socio-demographic variables. One model incorporates a simple binary indicator for hospitalization and the last two are based on the hierarchical coexisting conditions (HCCs: DxCG^® Risk Adjustment Software Release 6.1) using in-patient diagnoses. Special investigations were done on the subgroups of insurees who left, joined or stayed with the fund over the observation period. Age and gender grouping accounted for 3.2% of the variation in total expenditure for concurrent as well as prospective models. The current German risk adjusters age, sex, and invalidity status account for 5.1 and 4.5% of the variance in the concurrent and prospective models, respectively. Age, gender, invalidity status and in-patient HCC covariates explain about 37% of the variations of the total expenditures in a concurrent model and roughly 12% of the variations of total expenditures in a prospective model. Only modest improvement can be achieved with the long-term-care (LTC) indicator. For high-risk (cost) groups, substantial under-prediction remains; conversely, for the low-risk group, represented by enrolees who did not show any health care expense in the base year, all of the models over-predict expenditure. Special investigations were done on the subgroups of insurees who left, joined or stayed with the fund over the observation period.     

Regional variation in health care utilization and mortality

Geographic variation in health care utilization has raised concerns of possible inefficiencies in health care supply, as differences are often not reflected in health outcomes. Using comprehensive Norwegian microdata, we exploit cross-region migration to analyze regional variation in health care utilization. Our results indicate that place factors account for half of the difference in utilization between high and low utilization regions, while the rest reflects patient demand. We further document heterogeneous impacts of place across socioeconomic groups. Place factors account for 75% of the regional utilization difference for high school dropouts, and 40% for high school graduates; for patients with a college degree, the impact of place is negligible. We find no statistically significant association between the estimated place effects and overall mortality. However, we document a negative association between place effects and utilization-intensive causes of death such as cancer, suggesting high-supply regions may achieve modestly improved health outcomes.     

Methods for the evaluation and analysis of health expenditure

The purpose of health expenditure evaluation is to give an overall picture of the amounts spent for the functions of the health system; it also allows the analysis of the financial flows between the financiers, producers and consumers of the health system. Principles of evaluation include: monetary evaluation (market prices); avoidance of double accounts; quick communication of data; use of all available reliable statistics; use of rough estimates rather than leaving blanks in tables. Information already available can be used. Statistics also should be collected from financing bodies, providers of medical care, sample surveys, and general sources. Many statistics cannot be used directly but must be processed, adjusted, or broken down. In order to analyze information for health services management, one must ask: who is financing the consumption of medical care, and what is the trend of medical expenditure by sector or activity? Over time, summaries should be used to analyze trends. At the macrolevel, structural trends can be compared, such as demographic factors, gross economic product, inflation, price of medical care, volume of medical care, and contribution of prices and volumes to increases in expenditures. Causes of these trends include factors such as changes in collective financing and developments in the health care system. A brief analysis of the trends in final medical consumption expenditure in France shows 3300 francs per person expended in 1979, (7.3% of the GNP in 1979). Tables for France show: type of expenditure; type of financing in 1979; medical expenditure as a % of the gross domestic product, 1950-1980; and type of financing, 1950-1978. Hospitalization has accounted for an increasing proportion of medical expenditure in France, reflecting improvement in quality of services offered by hospitals. Public financing is shown to be increasing in France.     

上海市药品费用构成分析

目标:分析药品费用在医疗机构和零售机构的分布,以及医疗机构的总体用药情况。资料与方法:采用上海市卫生总费用核算数据、对上海市医疗机构用药数据进行描述性统计分析。结果:医疗机构的药品费用占药品总费用的比例将近80%,医疗机构用药中抗感染药物的构成比最高,其次是心血管系统用药,药品费用分布的集中度比较高,前100位的药品费用占药品总费用的一半以上。建议:逐步弱化药品与医疗机构的利益关系是控制药品费用的有效手段之一;降低药品费用,应从用药结构、价格和用量三个方面齐抓共管。     

Technical and cost efficiency of oral health care provision in Finnish health centres

In this study we measured the productive efficiency of public dental health provision across Finland. The analysis was based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) using linear programming. In addition, we investigated various factors explaining the technical and cost efficiency of public dental care using a parametric Tobit model. These analyses revealed substantial variation in productive efficiency between health centres in different municipalities. The level of cost inefficiency was generally between 20% and 30%. Good dental health of the population, high rates of unemployment and high per capita expenditure on primary care in the municipality were associated with technical and cost inefficiency. According to the results, cost efficiency would not be improved by shifting input allocation towards more auxiliary manpower in health centres. Individual efficiency scores were clearly sensitive to the choice of output specification. Changing the unit of output measurement from visit- to patient-based measures affected markedly the ranking of dental health centres. However, the set of exogenous correlates associated to inefficiency was strikingly similar for both types of output specification. More resources are needed if the coverage of public dental care is extended to all age groups. The health centre specific efficiency scores obtained in this study can be used locally to evaluate, design and implement structural changes in the production processes.     

Welchen Beitrag liefern funktional definierte Populationen zur Erklärung regionaler Unterschiede in der medizinischen Versorgung?

Geographic variation in health care is increasingly subject to analysis and health policy aiming at the suitable allocation of resources and the reduction of unwarranted variation for the patient populations concerned. As in the case of area-level indicators, in most cases populations are geographically defined. The concept of geographically defined populations, however, may be self-limiting with respect to identifying the potential for improvement. As an alternative, we explored how a functional definition of populations would support defining the scope for reducing unwarranted geographical variations. Given that patients in Germany have virtually no limits in accessing physicians of their choice, we adapted a method that has been developed in the United States to create virtual networks of physicians based on commonly treated patients. Using the physician claims data under statutory insurance, which covers 90?% of the population, we defined 43,006 populations—and networks—in 2010. We found that there is considerable variation between the population in terms of their risk structure and the share of the primary care practice in the total services provided. Moreover, there are marked differences in the size and structure of networks between cities, densely populated regions, and rural regions. We analyzed the variation for two area-level indicators: the proportion of diabetics with at least one HbA1c test per year for diabetics, and the proportion of patients with low back pain undergoing computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging. Variation at the level of functionally defined populations proved to be larger than for geographically defined populations. The pattern of distribution gives evidence on the degree to which consensus targets could be reached and which networks need to be addressed in order to reduce unwarranted regional variation. The concept of functionally defined populations needs to be further developed before implementation.     

Geographic Variation in Household and Catastrophic Health Spending in India: Assessing the Relative Importance of Villages,Districts, and States, 2011‐2012

Policy Points:

• Per‐capita household health spending was higher in economically developed states and was associated with ability to pay, but catastrophic health spending (CHS) was equally high in both poorer and more developed states in India.
• Based on multilevel modeling, we found that the largest geographic variation in health spending and CHS was at the state and village levels, reflecting wide inequality in the accessibility to and cost of health care at these levels.
• Contextual factors at macro and micro political units are important to reduce health spending and CHS in India.

Context

In India, health care is a local good, and households are the major source of financing it. Earlier studies have examined diverse determinants of health care spending, but no attempt has been made to understand the geographical variation in household and catastrophic health spending. We used multilevel modeling to assess the relative importance of villages, districts, and states to health spending in India.

Methods

We used data on the health expenditures of 101,576 households collected in the consumption expenditure schedule (68th round) carried out by the National Sample Survey in 2011‐2012. We examined 4 dependent variables: per‐capita health spending (PHS), per‐capita institutional health spending (PIHS), per‐capita noninstitutional health spending (PNHS), and catastrophic health spending (CHS). CHS was defined as household health spending exceeding 40% of its capacity to pay. We used multilevel linear regression and logistic models to decompose the variation in each outcome by state, region, district, village, and household levels.

Findings

The average PHS was 1,331 Indian rupees (INR), which varied by state‐level economic development. About one‐fourth of Indian households incurred CHS, which was equally high in both the economically developed and poorer states. After controlling for household level factors, 77.1% of the total variation in PHS was attributable to households, 10.1% to states, 9.5% to villages, 2.6% to districts, and 0.7% to regions. The pattern in variance partitioning was similar for PNHS. The largest interstate variation was found for CHS (15.9%), while the opposite was true for PIHS (3.2%).

Conclusions

We observed substantial variations in household health spending at the state and village levels compared with India's districts and regions. The large variation in CHS attributable to states indicates interstate inequality in the accessibility to and cost of health care. Our findings suggest that contextual factors at the macro and micro political units are important to reduce India's household health spending and CHS.