Political factors and arrangements influencing primary health care financing and resource allocation: A scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Primary health care is a key element in the structuring and coordination of health systems, contributing to overall coverage and performance. PHC financing is therefore central in this context, with variations in sufficiency and regularity depending on the "political dimension" of health systems. Research that systematically examines the political factors and arrangements influencing PHC financing is justified from a global and multidisciplinary perspective. The scoping review proposed here aims to systematically map the evidence on this topic in the current literature, identifying groups, institutions, priorities and gaps in the research. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A scoping review will be conducted following the method proposed by Arksey and O'Malley to answer the following question: What is known from the literature about political factors and arrangements and their influence on and repercussions for primary health care financing and resource allocation models? The review will include peer-reviewed papers in Portuguese, English or Spanish published between 1978 and 2023. Searches will be performed of the following databases: Medline (PubMed), Embase, BVS Salud, Web of Science, Scopus and Science Direct. The review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. Inclusion and exclusion criteria will be used for literature screening and mapping. Screening and data charting will be conducted by a team of four reviewers. REGISTRATION: This protocol is registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) platform, available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Q9W3P.

Federal transfers to municipalities through parliamentary amendments: implications for SUS funding. / Transferências federais por emendas parlamentares aos municípios: implicações para o financiamento do SUS.

The present article analyzes the transfers from parliamentary amendments by the Ministry of Health to municipalities to finance public health actions and services from 2015 to 2021. A descriptive and exploratory study was carried out with secondary data, including all Brazilian cities. Resources from amendments showed an increase, particularly from 2018 onwards, indicating the expansion of their relevance for financing SUS. From 2016 to 2021, over 80% was allocated to municipalities, representing 9.5% of all federal transfers, with 91.2% for operational expenses. Transfers from amendments differ from regular transfers due to greater instability and per capita variation among the amounts collected by municipalities and due to the fact that they allocate most resources to the Northeast and primary care to the detriment of the Southeast and medium and high complexity care. These transfers represent a differentiated modality of resource allocation in SUS that produces new distortions and asymmetries, with implications for intergovernmental relations, as well as between the executive and legislative powers, increasing the risk of the discontinuity of actions and services and imposing challenges for the municipal management.

O artigo tem como objetivo analisar as transferências por emendas parlamentares do Ministério da Saúde aos municípios para o financiamento de ações e serviços públicos de saúde, de 2015 a 2021. Foi realizado estudo descritivo e exploratório com dados secundários, abrangendo a totalidade de municípios brasileiros. Os recursos provenientes de emendas apresentaram aumento, em especial a partir de 2018, indicando a expansão de sua relevância para o financiamento do SUS. No período de 2016 a 2021, mais de 80% foram alocados aos municípios, representando 9,5% dos repasses federais, com 91,2% de natureza de custeio. As transferências por emendas diferem dos repasses regulares por possuir maior instabilidade e variação per capita entre os montantes captados pelos municípios, e por destinar a maior parte dos recursos ao Nordeste e à atenção primária, em detrimento do Sudeste e da média e alta complexidade. Configura-se uma modalidade diferenciada de alocação de recursos no SUS que produz novas distorções e assimetrias, com implicações para as relações intergovernamentais e entre os poderes executivo e legislativo, ampliando o risco de descontinuidade de ações e serviços e impondo desafios para as gestões municipais.

Monetary valuation of one year in full capability and health based on demographics, health status, income and well-being.

BACKGROUND: Budget constraints in health-care systems have led to the popularity of Cost Effectiveness Thresholds (CET) to achieve efficient allocation of resources. The capability approach has been hailed for its potentially richer evaluative capabilities compared to the QALY in terms of thresholds. Extensive research, however, is still limited. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This study estimated the monetary value of a year in full capability (YFC) and compared it to monetary value of a QALY for the Hungarian population. Data was collected from a large, cross sectional, representative online survey on the adult Hungarian population. Applying the wellbeing valuation method, health, capability, and income were then regressed against wellbeing to estimate 'shadow prices' for one QALY and YFC controlling for gender, age, employment, education, marital and social support. To examine 'core' regression coefficients, a robustness check was conducted. RESULTS: Health (VAS) and capability (ICECAP-A) had a positive and significant effect on Subjective Well-Being. The monetary values of one QALY and one YFC were 39 459 EUR and 58 148 EUR respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These tools provide a systematic approach to determining 'compensating income' for certain illnesses, disabilities and levels of pain. The capability approach shown to be broader than the QALY.

Is Economic Evaluation and Care Commissioning Focused on Achieving the Same Outcomes? Resource-Allocation Considerations and Challenges Using England as a Case Study.

Commissioning describes the process of contracting appropriate care services to address pre-identified needs through pre-agreed payment structures. Outcomes-based commissioning (i.e., paying services for pre-agreed outcomes) shares a common goal with economic evaluation: achieving value for money for relevant outcomes (e.g., health) achieved from a finite budget. We describe considerations and challenges as to the practical role of relevant outcomes for evaluation and commissioning, seeking to bridge a gap between economic evaluation evidence and care commissioning. We describe conceptual (e.g., what are 'relevant' outcomes) alongside practical considerations (e.g., quantifying and using relevant endpoint or surrogate outcomes) and pertinent issues when linking outcomes to commissioning-based payment mechanisms, using England as a case study. Economic evaluation often focuses on a single endpoint health-focused maximand, e.g., quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), whereas commissioning often focuses on activity-based surrogate outcomes (e.g., health monitoring), as easier-to-measure key performance indicators that are more acceptable (e.g., by clinicians) and amenable to being linked with payment structures. However, payments linked to endpoint and/or surrogate outcomes can lead to market inefficiencies; for example, when surrogates do not have the intended causal effect on endpoint outcomes or when service activity focuses on only people who can achieve prespecified payment-linked outcomes. Accounting for and explaining direct links from commissioners' payment structures to surrogate and then endpoint economic outcomes is a vital step to bridging a gap between economic evaluation approaches and commissioning. Decision-analytic models could aid this but they must be designed to account for relevant surrogate and endpoint outcomes, the payments assigned to such outcomes, and their interaction with the system commissioners purport to influence.

It Is Time to Reconsider the 3% Discount Rate.

OBJECTIVES: Health technology assessment (HTA) guidance often recommends a 3% real annual discount rate, the appropriateness of which has received limited attention. This article seeks to identify an appropriate rate for high-income countries because it can influence projected cost-effectiveness and hence resource allocation recommendations. METHODS: The author conducted 2 Pubmed.gov searches. The first sought articles on the theory for selecting a rate. The second sought HTA guidance documents. RESULTS: The first search yielded 21 articles describing 2 approaches. The "Ramsey Equation" sums contributions by 4 factors: pure time preference, catastrophic risk, wealth effect, and macroeconomic risk. The first 3 factors increase the discount rate because they indicate future impacts are less important, whereas the last, suggesting greater future need, decreases the discount rate. A fifth factor-project-specific risk-increases the discount rate but does not appear in the Ramsey Equation. Market interest rates represent a second approach for identifying a discount rate because they represent competing investment returns and hence opportunity costs. The second search identified HTA guidelines for 32 high-income countries. Twenty-two provide no explicit rationale for their recommended rates, 8 appeal to market interest rates, 3 to consistency, and 3 to Ramsey Equation factors. CONCLUSIONS: Declining consumption growth and real interest rates imply HTA guidance should reduce recommended discount rates to 1.5 to 2+%. This change will improve projected cost-effectiveness for therapies with long-term benefits and increase the impact of accounting for long-term drug price dynamics, including reduced prices attending loss of market exclusivity.

Social Decision-Making Analysis: A General Approach to Inform Decisions on Resources in the Public Sector.

OBJECTIVES: Public expenditure aims to achieve social objectives by improving a range of socially valuable attributes of benefit (arguments in a social welfare function). Public expenditure is typically allocated to public sector budgets, where budget holders are tasked with meeting a subset of social objectives. METHODS: Decision makers require an evidence-based assessment of whether a proposed investment is likely to be worthwhile given existing levels of public expenditure. However, others also require some assessment of whether the overall level and allocation of public expenditure are appropriate. This article proposes a more general theoretical framework for economic evaluation that addresses both these questions. RESULTS: Using a stylized example of the economic evaluation of a new intervention in a simplified UK context, we show that this more general framework can support decisions beyond the approval or rejection of single projects. It shows that broader considerations about the level and allocation of public expenditure are possible and necessary when evaluating specific investments, which requires evidence of the range of benefits offered by marginal changes in different types of public expenditure and normative choices of how the attributes of benefit gained and forgone are valued. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed framework shows how to assess the value of a proposed investment and whether and how the overall level of public expenditure and its allocation across public sector budgets might be changed. It highlights that cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis can be viewed as special cases of this framework, identifying the weakness with each.

Evaluation of Length of Stay, Care Volume, In-Hospital Mortality, and Emergency Readmission Rate Associated With Use of Diagnosis-Related Groups for Internal Resource Allocation in Public Hospitals in Hong Kong.

Importance: Hong Kong's internal resource allocation system for public inpatient care changed from a global budget system to one based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) in 2009 and returned to a global budget system in 2012. Changes in patient and hospital outcomes associated with moving from a DRG-based system to a global budget system for inpatient care have rarely been evaluated. Objective: To examine associations between the introduction and discontinuation of DRGs and changes in length of stay, volume of care, in-hospital mortality rates, and emergency readmission rates in the inpatient population in acute care hospitals overall, stratified by age group, and across 5 medical conditions. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study included data from patients aged 45 years or older who were hospitalized in public acute care settings in Hong Kong before the introduction (April 2006 to March 2009), during implementation (April 2009 to March 2012), and after discontinuation (April 2012 to November 2014) of the DRG scheme. Data analysis was conducted from January to June 2021. Exposures: Public hospitals transitioned from a global budget payment system to a DRG-based system in April 2009 and returned to a global budget system in April 2014. Main Outcomes and Measures: The main outcome was the association of use of DRGs with patient-level length of stay, in-hospital mortality rate, 1-month emergency readmission rate, and population-level number of admissions per month. An interrupted time series design was used to estimate changes in the level and slope of outcome variables after introduction and discontinuation of DRGs, accounting for pretrends. Results: This study included 7 604 390 patient episodes. Overall, the mean (SD) age of patients was 68.97 (13.20) years, and 52.17% were male. The introduction of DRGs was associated with a 1.77% (95% CI, 1.23%-2.32%) decrease in the mean length of stay, a 2.90% (95% CI, 2.52%-3.28%) increase in the number of patients admitted, a 4.12% (95% CI, 1.89%-6.35%) reduction in in-hospital mortality, and a 2.37% (95% CI, 1.28%-3.46%) decrease in emergency readmissions. Discontinuation of the DRG scheme was associated with a 0.93% (95% CI, 0.42%-1.44%) increase in the mean length of stay and a 1.82% (95% CI, 1.47%-2.17%) reduction in the number of patients treated after adjusting for covariates; no statistically significant change was observed in in-hospital mortality (-0.14%; 95% CI, -2.29% to 2.01%) or emergency readmission rate (-0.29%; 95% CI, -1.30% to 0.71%). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study, the introduction of DRGs was associated with shorter lengths of stay and increased hospital volume, and discontinuation was associated with longer lengths of stay and decreased hospital volume. In-hospital mortality and emergency readmission rates did not significantly change after discontinuation of DRGs.

Optima TB: A tool to help optimally allocate tuberculosis spending.

Approximately 85% of tuberculosis (TB) related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where health resources are scarce. Effective priority setting is required to maximise the impact of limited budgets. The Optima TB tool has been developed to support analytical capacity and inform evidence-based priority setting processes for TB health benefits package design. This paper outlines the Optima TB framework and how it was applied in Belarus, an upper-middle income country in Eastern Europe with a relatively high burden of TB. Optima TB is a population-based disease transmission model, with programmatic cost functions and an optimisation algorithm. Modelled populations include age-differentiated general populations and higher-risk populations such as people living with HIV. Populations and prospective interventions are defined in consultation with local stakeholders. In partnership with the latter, demographic, epidemiological, programmatic, as well as cost and spending data for these populations and interventions are then collated. An optimisation analysis of TB spending was conducted in Belarus, using program objectives and constraints defined in collaboration with local stakeholders, which included experts, decision makers, funders and organisations involved in service delivery, support and technical assistance. These analyses show that it is possible to improve health impact by redistributing current TB spending in Belarus. Specifically, shifting funding from inpatient- to outpatient-focused care models, and from mass screening to active case finding strategies, could reduce TB prevalence and mortality by up to 45% and 50%, respectively, by 2035. In addition, an optimised allocation of TB spending could lead to a reduction in drug-resistant TB infections by 40% over this period. This would support progress towards national TB targets without additional financial resources. The case study in Belarus demonstrates how reallocations of spending across existing and new interventions could have a substantial impact on TB outcomes. This highlights the potential for Optima TB and similar modelling tools to support evidence-based priority setting.

Willingness to Pay for Health-Related Quality of Life Gains in Relation to Disease Severity and the Age of Patients.

OBJECTIVES: Decision-making frameworks that draw on economic evaluations increasingly use equity weights to facilitate a more equitable and fair allocation of healthcare resources. These weights can be attached to health gains or reflected in the monetary threshold against which the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of (new) health technologies are evaluated. Currently applied weights are based on different definitions of disease severity and do not account for age-related preferences in society. However, age has been shown to be an important equity-relevant characteristic. This study examines the willingness to pay (WTP) for health-related quality of life (QOL) gains in relation to the disease severity and age of patients, and the outcome of the disease. METHODS: We obtained WTP estimates by applying contingent-valuation tasks in a representative sample of the public in The Netherlands (n = 2023). We applied random-effects generalized least squares regression models to estimate the effect of patients' disease severity and age, size of QOL gains, disease outcome (full recovery/death 1 year after falling ill), and respondent characteristics on the WTP. RESULTS: Respondents' WTP was higher for more severely ill and younger patients and for larger-sized QOL gains, but lower for patients who died. However, the relations were nonlinear and context dependent. Respondents with a lower age, who were male, had a higher household income, and a higher QOL stated a higher WTP for QOL gains. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that-if the aim is to align resource-allocation decisions in healthcare with societal preferences-currently applied equity weights do not suffice.

Development and Validation of a Hospital Indicator of Activity-Based Costs for Injury Admissions.

OBJECTIVES: To develop a hospital indicator of resource use for injury admissions. METHODS: We focused on resource use for acute injury care and therefore adopted a hospital perspective. We included patients ≥16 years old with an Injury Severity Score >9 admitted to any of the 57 trauma centers of an inclusive Canadian trauma system from 2014 to 2018. We extracted data from the trauma registry and hospital financial reports and estimated resource use with activity-based costing. We developed risk-adjustment models by trauma center designation level (I/II and III/IV) for the whole sample, traumatic brain injuries, thoraco-abdominal injuries, orthopedic injuries, and patients ≥65 years old. Candidate variables were selected using bootstrap resampling. We performed benchmarking by comparing the adjusted mean cost in each center, obtained using shrinkage estimates, to the provincial mean. RESULTS: We included 38 713 patients. The models explained between 12% and 36% (optimism-corrected r2) of the variation in resource use. In the whole sample and in all subgroups, we identified centers with higher- or lower-than-expected resource use across level I/II and III/IV centers. CONCLUSIONS: We propose an algorithm to produce the indicator using data routinely collected in trauma registries to prompt targeted exploration of potential areas for improvement in resource use for injury admissions. The r2 of our models suggest that between 64% and 88% of the variation in resource use for injury care is dictated by factors other than patient baseline risk.

The influence of the U.S. response to COVID-19 in Global Health. / A influência da resposta dos EUA à COVID-19 no contexto da Saúde Global.

The American response to the pandemic involves a prominent volume of federal resources, especially for developing and acquiring products for internal use, such as diagnostics or vaccines. Investment mechanisms and historical aspects justify this expenditure. Thus, the social construction of nationalism in American society hinders access to health technologies. The review of such aspects shows how the United States (U.S.) secured a large number of potential products, ensuring excessive local production. This unilateral foreign policy has influenced other countries or regional blocs and undermined global cooperation and solidarity, affecting the collective health of several nations.

A resposta americana à pandemia envolve um proeminente volume de recursos federais, em especial destinados ao desenvolvimento e aquisição de produtos no uso interno, como diagnósticos ou vacinas. As justificativas para esse desembolso se baseiam em mecanismos de investimentos e aspectos históricos. Assim, a construção social do nacionalismo na formação na sociedade americana prejudica o acesso a tecnologias em saúde. A revisão desses aspectos demonstra como os Estados Unidos (EUA) garantiram compra de grande quantitativo de produtos em potencial, inclusive assegurando excessiva produção local. Essa política externa unilateral tem influenciado outros países ou blocos regionais e prejudicado a cooperação e a solidariedade global com impacto na saúde coletiva de diversas nações.

A influência da resposta dos EUA à COVID-19 no contexto da Saúde Global / The influence of the U.S. response to COVID-19 in Global Health

Resumo A resposta americana à pandemia envolve um proeminente volume de recursos federais, em especial destinados ao desenvolvimento e aquisição de produtos no uso interno, como diagnósticos ou vacinas. As justificativas para esse desembolso se baseiam em mecanismos de investimentos e aspectos históricos. Assim, a construção social do nacionalismo na formação na sociedade americana prejudica o acesso a tecnologias em saúde. A revisão desses aspectos demonstra como os Estados Unidos (EUA) garantiram compra de grande quantitativo de produtos em potencial, inclusive assegurando excessiva produção local. Essa política externa unilateral tem influenciado outros países ou blocos regionais e prejudicado a cooperação e a solidariedade global com impacto na saúde coletiva de diversas nações.

Abstract The American response to the pandemic involves a prominent volume of federal resources, especially for developing and acquiring products for internal use, such as diagnostics or vaccines. Investment mechanisms and historical aspects justify this expenditure. Thus, the social construction of nationalism in American society hinders access to health technologies. The review of such aspects shows how the United States (U.S.) secured a large number of potential products, ensuring excessive local production. This unilateral foreign policy has influenced other countries or regional blocs and undermined global cooperation and solidarity, affecting the collective health of several nations.

When Scarcity Meets Disparity: "Resources Allocation and COVID-19 Patients with Diabetes".

The COVID-19 pandemic raised distinct challenges in the field of scarce resource allocation, a long-standing area of inquiry in the field of bioethics. Policymakers and states developed crisis guidelines for ventilator triage that incorporated such factors as immediate prognosis, long-term life expectancy, and current stage of life. Often these depend upon existing risk factors for severe illness, including diabetes. However, these algorithms generally failed to account for the underlying structural biases, including systematic racism and economic disparity, that rendered some patients more vulnerable to these conditions. This paper discusses this unique ethical challenge in resource allocation through the lens of care for patients with severe COVID-19 and diabetes.

Resource allocation for depression management in general practice: A simple data-based filter model.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to illustrate the potential utility of a simple filter model in understanding the patient outcome and cost-effectiveness implications for depression interventions in primary care. METHODS: Modelling of hypothetical intervention scenarios during different stages of the treatment pathway was conducted. RESULTS: Three scenarios were developed for depression related to increasing detection, treatment response and treatment uptake. The incremental costs, incremental number of successes (i.e., depression remission) and the incremental costs-effectiveness ratio (ICER) were calculated. In the modelled scenarios, increasing provider treatment response resulted in the greatest number of incremental successes above baseline, however, it was also associated with the greatest ICER. Increasing detection rates was associated with the second greatest increase to incremental successes above baseline and had the lowest ICER. CONCLUSIONS: The authors recommend utility of the filter model to guide the identification of areas where policy stakeholders and/or researchers should invest their efforts in depression management.

Cost and impact of scaling up female genital mutilation prevention and care programs: Estimated resource requirements and impact on incidence and prevalence.

PURPOSE: SDG 5.3 targets include eliminating harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Limited information is available about levels of investment needed and realistic estimates of potential incidence change. In this work, we estimate the cost and impact of FGM programs in 31 high burden countries. METHODS: This analysis combines program data, secondary data analysis, and population-level costing methods to estimate cost and impact of high and moderate scaleup of FGM programs between 2020 and 2030. Cost per person or community reached was multiplied by populations to estimate costs, and regression analysis was used to estimate new incidence rates, which were applied to populations to estimate cases averted. RESULTS: Reaching the high-coverage targets for 31 countries by 2030 would require an investment of US$ 3.3 billion. This scenario would avert more than 24 million cases of FGM, at an average cost of US$ 134 per case averted. A moderate-coverage scenario would cost US$ 1.6 billion and avert more than 12 million cases of FGM. However, average cost per case averted hides substantial variation based on country dynamics. The most cost-effective investment would be in countries with limited historic change in FGM incidence, with the average cost per case averted between US$ 3 and US$ 90. The next most effective would be those with high approval for FGM, but a preexisting trend downward, where cost per case averted is estimated at around US$ 240. INTERPRETATION: This analysis shows that although data on FGM is limited, we can draw useful findings from population-level surveys and program data to guide resource mobilization and program planning.

Responsibility for Funding Refractive Correction in Publicly Funded Health Care Systems: An Ethical Analysis.

Allocating on the basis of need is a distinguishing principle in publicly funded health care systems. Resources ought to be directed to patients, or the health program, where the need is considered greatest. In Sweden support of this principle can be found in health care legislation. Today however some domains of what appear to be health care needs are excluded from the responsibilities of the publicly funded health care system. Corrections of eye disorders known as refractive errors is one such domain. In this article the moral legitimacy of this exception is explored. Individuals with refractive errors need spectacles, contact lenses or refractive surgery to do all kinds of thing, including participating in everyday activities, managing certain jobs, and accomplishing various goals in life. The relief of correctable visual impairments fits well into the category of what we typically consider a health care need. The study of refractive errors does belong to the field of medical science, interventions to correct such errors can be performed by medical means, and the skills of registered health care professionals are required when it comes to correcting refractive error. As visual impairments caused by other conditions than refractive errors are treated and funded within the public health care system in Sweden this is an inconsistency that needs to be addressed.