Managing health care costs

Benchmark Indicators Based on the Episodes of Care

Authors

• Miika Linna
• Unto Häkkinen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23990/sa.153378

Abstract

The objective of our study was to identify the sources of measured differences in hospital costs per capita across the health care districts in Finland.

In this study the total cost variation was divided into two components, the first of which was due to differences in the use of services. The second component measured the differences in productivity by taking ' into account the differences in managing the patients' care processes.

This study was able to discern the existence of considerable differences in the use of inputs in the treatment processes of various patient groups. The methods presented here show how patient or disease group level measurement can be used to pinpoint the potential for productivity improvement.