In this book the authors explore the state of the art on efficiency measurement in health systems and international experts offer insights into the pitfalls and potential associated with various measurement techniques. The authors show that: - The core idea of efficiency is easy to understand in principle - maximizing valued outputs relative to inputs, but is often difficult to make operational in real-life situations - There have been numerous advances in data collection and availability, as well as innovative methodological approaches that give valuable insights into how efficiently health care is delivered - Our simple analytical framework can facilitate the development and interpretation of efficiency indicators.

"This book examines some of the most important techniques currently available to measure the efficiency of systems and organisations, including data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis, and also presents some promising new methodological approaches." [Title verso].

This book explores trends in health care outcomes and spending; ways of assessing efficiency; new indicators of health care policies and institutions; and the characteristics and performance of health care systems.

The United States has the highest per capita spending on health care of any industrialized nation but continually lags behind other nations in health care outcomes including life expectancy and infant mortality. National health expenditures are projected to exceed $2.5 trillion in 2009. Given healthcare's direct impact on the economy, there is a critical need to control health care spending. According to The Health Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes, the costs of health care have strained the federal budget, and negatively affected state governments, the private sector and individuals. Healthcare expenditures have restricted the ability of state and local governments to fund other priorities and have contributed to slowing growth in wages and jobs in the private sector. Moreover, the number of uninsured has risen from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. The Health Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes identifies a number of factors driving expenditure growth including scientific uncertainty, perverse economic and practice incentives, system fragmentation, lack of patient involvement, and under-investment in population health. Experts discussed key levers for catalyzing transformation of the delivery system. A few included streamlined health insurance regulation, administrative simplification and clarification and quality and consistency in treatment. The book is an excellent guide for policymakers at all levels of government, as well as private sector healthcare workers.

This book highlights the core elements of a possible performance measurement framework to assess health systems at the international and national levels. It also addresses further challenges which remain.

Healthcare Organizations offer significant opportunities for change and improvement in their overall performance. Hospitals and clinics are generally large, complex, and inefficient, and need serious development in process workflow and management systems, which will ultimately lead to better patient and financial outcomes. The National Academy of Medicine has stated that hospital systems are broken, and that they must begin by "... improving hospital efficiency and patient flow, and using operational management methods and information technologies." In fact, costs and quality are two of the important aspects of the "triple aim" in healthcare. One area that offers significant potential for improvement is through the application of performance improvement methods to patient and process flows. Performance improvement has a significant impact on a hospital’s over financial and strategic performance. Performance improvement involves the deployment of quantitative and scientific methods to model and influence the functioning of organizations. Performance improvement professionals are tasked with managing a variety of activities, such as deploying new information technologies, serving as project managers for construction events, re-engineering departmental process workflow, eliminating bottlenecks, and improving the flow and movement of patients between resource-intensive clinical areas. All of these are high risk, and require use of advanced, sophisticated methods to improve efficiency and quality, while minimizing disruptions from change. This updated edition is a comprehensive and concise guide to performance improvement in healthcare. It describes the management engineering principles focused on designing optimal management and information systems and processes. Case studies and examples are integrated throughout all chapters.

In a world where there is increasing demand for the performance of health providers to be measured, there is a need for a more strategic vision of the role that performance measurement can play in securing health system improvement. This volume meets this need by presenting the opportunities and challenges associated with performance measurement in a framework that is clear and easy to understand. It examines the various levels at which health system performance is undertaken, the technical instruments and tools available, and the implications using these may have for those charged with the governance of the health system. Technical material is presented in an accessible way and is illustrated with examples from all over the world. Performance Measurement for Health System Improvement is an authoritative and practical guide for policy makers, regulators, patient groups and researchers.