What is a hospital bed day worth? A contingent valuation study of hospital Chief Executive Officers.
BMC Health Serv Res
; 17(1): 137, 2017 02 14.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28196489
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Decreasing hospital length of stay, and so freeing up hospital beds, represents an important cost saving which is often used in economic evaluations. The savings need to be accurately quantified in order to make optimal health care resource allocation decisions. Traditionally the accounting cost of a bed is used. We argue instead that the economic cost of a bed day is the better value for making resource decisions, and we describe our valuation method and estimations for costing this important resource.METHODS:
We performed a contingent valuation using 37 Australian Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs) willingness to pay (WTP) to release bed days in their hospitals, both generally and using specific cases. We provide a succinct thematic analysis from qualitative interviews post survey completion, which provide insight into the decision making process.RESULTS:
On average CEOs are willing to pay a marginal rate of $216 for a ward bed day and $436 for an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed day, with estimates of uncertainty being greater for ICU beds. These estimates are significantly lower (four times for ward beds and seven times for ICU beds) than the traditional accounting costs often used. Key themes to emerge from the interviews include the importance of national funding and targets, and their associated incentive structures, as well as the aversion to discuss bed days as an economic resource.CONCLUSIONS:
This study highlights the importance for valuing bed days as an economic resource to inform cost effectiveness models and thus improve hospital decision making and resource allocation. Significantly under or over valuing the resource is very likely to result in sub-optimal decision making. We discuss the importance of recognising the opportunity costs of this resource and highlight areas for future research.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Ocupação de Leitos
/
Diretores de Hospitais
/
Cuidados Críticos
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
/
Qualitative_research
Limite:
Humans
País como assunto:
Oceania
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2017
Tipo de documento:
Article