IRELAND NEEDS a cost database for healthcare if people are to receive the optimum treatment, according to the Health Economics Association of Ireland.
Health economists participating in a conference on the issue at NUI Galway (NUIG) last week have agreed to seek research funding for such a database. The analysis would focus on individual services within the healthcare system and medicine research, according to Dr Brenda Gannon, economist at NUIG’s Irish Centre for Social Gerontology and organiser of last week’s gathering.
Not only should such a database be created, but it also needed to be maintained regularly with necessary data – similar to that produced in Britain, the conference heard.
A recent publication by the Health Research Board (HRB) “highlights the socio-economic benefits of health research in Ireland”, Dr Gannon said, and this was even more important now with changing demographics. “Economic evaluation is now becoming even more important, particularly in the context of health technology assessment and its use in healthcare policy,” she said.
Health technology assessment is defined as the comparative analysis of cost and outcomes associated with health or social care interventions.
“The comparison refers to relative value for money associated with deployment of resources across alternative uses,” Dr Gannon said. “It can be used to advise policy, but not to replace or dictate it.”
More investment was needed in key skills in Ireland, and the demand for such skills was becoming increasingly obvious, she said.
“Healthcare is a commodity that almost everyone has to avail of at some point in their life,” she said, and total expenditure on same accounts for about 7 per cent of GDP annually.
“The growing importance of biomedical engineering and science and pharmaceutical companies has meant that investment by large corporations has been huge, and provides much growth for economies,” she said. Not surprisingly, she said, the allocation of healthcare resources was “high on the agenda for many governments”.
Statistics do not appeal to all, so the analysis “need not be as complicated as one fears”, she said. She identified the key criteria as efficiency and equity, including hospital efficiency, inequality measurement, health technology assessment and costs of illness or disability. The ultimate goal is best utilisation of expertise.
The Health Economics Association of Ireland was set up in 2001 to foster the sharing of information relating to health economics. Membership is drawn from public and private organisations, as well as academic institutions, and the group meets twice yearly.