RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 outbreak was defined as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization. After that, COVID-19 has enormously influenced health systems around the world, and it has claimed more than 4.2 million deaths until July 2021. The pandemic has led to global health, social and economic costs. This situation has prompted a crucial search for beneficial interventions and treatments, but little is known about their monetary value. This study is aimed at systematically reviewing the articles conducted on the economic evaluation of preventive, control and treatment strategies against COVID-19. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar from December 2019 to October 2021 to find applicable literature to the economic evaluation of strategies against COVID-19. Two researchers screened potentially eligible titles and abstracts. The Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist was used to quality assessment of studies. RESULTS: Thirty-six studies were included in this review, and the average CHEERS score was 72. Cost-effectiveness analysis was the most common type of economic evaluation, used in 21 studies. And the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) was the main outcome applied to measure the effectiveness of interventions, which was used in 19 studies. In addition, articles were reported a wide range of incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), and the lowest cost per QALY ($321.14) was related to the use of vaccines. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this systematic review, it seems that all strategies are likely to be more cost-effective against COVID-19 than no intervention and vaccination was the most cost-effective strategy. This research provides insight for decision makers in choosing optimal interventions against the next waves of the current pandemic and possible future pandemics.
RESUMO
Iran has performed Health Transformation Plan (HTP) from 2014 to obtain its defined goals. This study assesses and compares university and non-university hospitals' efficiency and productivity in Kerman provinces, Iran. The data of 19 selected hospitals, two years before and two years after Health Transformation Plan, was collected in this cross-sectional study. These data included the variables of physician and nurse number, and active beds as inputs and bed occupancy rate and inpatient admission adjusted with the length of stay as outputs. Data Envelopment Analysis method used to measure hospital efficiency. Malmquist Productivity Index is used to measure the efficiency change model before and after the plan. The efficiency and effect of the plan on hospitals' efficiency and productivity were assessed using R software. The results indicated that all hospitals' average efficiency before the HTP was 0.843 and after the HTP was increased to 0.874. However, it was not significant (P>0.05). Productivity also had a decreasing trend. Based on the DEA method results, it was found that university and non-university hospitals' efficiency and productivity did not increase significantly after the HTP. Therefore, it is recommended that attention be paid to hospitals' performance indicators regarding how resources are allocated and decisions made.