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The role of health economics in public health planning.
Abstract
Public health policy is crucial for the maintenance and the improvement of the population’s health. According to the needs of each historic period the priorities of public health policy vary. The importance of public health interventions, however, is undoubted and has been proven during the centuries. The scarcity of resources is a constraint in the implementation of all public health interventions in order all health needs to be satisfied. Furthermore, the present economic crisis imposes another obstacle to this purpose. At this situation informed purchasing and the selection of the most clinically and cost effective measure is deemed necessary. The role of health economics at this is of great importance. The aim of the present paper is to investigate whether the health economics theory and tools can explain the need for public health policy measures, contribute to the design and implementation and be applied to the assessment of the alternative interventions.
... Regarding the application of these methods to health care management, Herrera et al. (2002) defend their use in the planning, in national health care accounts, and in the accounting of health care units. In another study, Kyriopoulos and Tsiantou (2010) discussed the importance of using health economics tools to establish priorities in health care policies, by studying the relationship between them and the main health care policies and interventions, such as health education initiatives, in a context of financial crisis and economic recession. They concluded that health economics provides a complete methodology to improve the use of scarce resources through the reduction of morbidity and hospitalization, besides gains in terms of human capital. ...
This texts aims to introduce some reflections on the role and relevance of health economics units (HEUs) regarding national health care systems. The starting points are the core aspects of this knowledge field and its contribution to health care management, to give rise to considerations on the role and relevance of such units. Matters such as the health care managers' and political leaders' knowledge on health economics, the need for HEUs to take simultaneous action at various levels in the organization of a qualified multidisciplinary technical body, as well as the technical and political nature of the work, their possibilities and limits for action, their aspects, and their relationship with external research groups. Finally, the work of a specialized internal health economics team is one of the means to qualify the decision-making process in public health care organizations, to optimize the use of resources and their proper equitable allocation.
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