[Evaluation of the effectiveness of health care].

Abstract

During the last two decades, the economic aspects of health care acquired an outstanding attentiveness in all developed countries. Simultaneously, the methods have been searched for a more intensive and perfect application of internal health sources, i.e. manpower, materials and money. New approaches in evaluating health care efficacy (conception of health provision as a branch of national economy) have been made. In accord with them, the efficiency of either individual or partial health actions such as health care programs, preventive measures, diagnostical and curative procedures etc.) is measured. All these questions are the up to date topic for Health care of Czechoslovakia which now is far to dispose of sources comparable with the majority of economically developed countries in Europe. At present, they are approximately similar in supplying 1 person health care needs with 500-1000 dol. a year and even more in several countries, whereas Czechoslovakia spends about 200 dol. on health needs of 1 inhabitant a year. This fact is closely connected with relatively low efficacy of our economy incapable to produce the sufficient sources for providing health care on one hand, and on the other it is due both to the budgetary politics as practiced now and the conception of national product division. The shortage in Health care sources is manifested mainly in retardation of material and technical base of health service altogether with low levelled renumeration of health workers consequential in psychologic, social and political problems. The consequences of this condition are reflected negatively in a level of health service provision. This is as far important as the czechoslovac population health status viewed from the so-called strategic health indices (averaged life expectancy, specific mortality, occurrence of cardiovascular diseases and malignancies etc.) is not favourable due to a number of factors, and its improvement will require considerable efforts from both the health workers and community as a whole. Besides the needful enlargement of sources, these complicated questions are resolvable in observing unity of medical, organizational and economical rationality on all levels of health service management and in all health institutions. This is also the way how to improve the efficiency of health care. The term of efficiency in relation to the health services. In economics, the efficiency is the ratio between the achieved result (effect) and the expenditure of a specified amount of resources. Mathematically, this ratio is expressed as follows: efficiency = end-result/costs Linked to the Health care, the efficiency may be understood also differently from its economic term.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)