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What can we learn from a cross‐country comparison of the costs of child delivery?
Author(s) -
Bellanger Martine M.,
Or Zeynep
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1325
Subject(s) - purchasing power parity , purchasing power , purchasing , business , healthcare delivery , health care , task (project management) , health care delivery , developing country , operations management , medicine , economics , economic growth , marketing , finance , management , exchange rate , keynesian economics
This study provides a comparative analysis of the costs of normal delivery in hospital in nine European countries using the data collected as part of the Health BASKET project. The results show that both the level of input (medical labour) prices and the skill mix used for delivery are major determinants of total delivery costs. At the hospital level, there seems to be room for greater efficiency through specialisation and task shifting from doctors to midwives and nurses. More generally, the results of our study suggest that the costs of delivery in hospital are not independent of supplementary home care provided outside of hospitals. The cost information and analysis in this study may also be useful for developing healthcare‐specific purchasing power parities (PPPs) that allow for healthcare expenditures to be compared across countries. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.