Incorporating efficiency in hospital-capacity planning in Germany

Hospital occupancy is a key metric in hospital-capacity planning in Germany, even though this metric neglects important drivers of economic efficiency, for example treatment costs and case mix. We suggest an alternative metric, which incorporates economic efficiency explicitly, and illustrate how th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The European journal of health economics 2007-09, Vol.8 (3), p.213-223
Main Authors: Kuntz, Ludwig, Scholtes, Stefan, Vera, Antonio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bed Occupancy - economics
Bed Occupancy - statistics & numerical data
Capacity costs
Cost efficiency
Disease models
Economic regulation
Economics
Efficiency
Efficiency metrics
Efficiency, Organizational - economics
Efficiency, Organizational - statistics & numerical data
Germany
Health economics
Health Services Accessibility
Hospital Bed Capacity - economics
Hospital Bed Capacity - statistics & numerical data
Hospital beds
Hospital costs
Hospital planning
Hospital Planning - economics
Hospital Planning - methods
Hospitals
Humans
Models, Econometric
National Health Programs
Occupancy costs
Policy Making
Politics
Programming, Linear
Psychiatric hospitals
Studies
Utilization Review - economics
Utilization Review - statistics & numerical data
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Summary:Hospital occupancy is a key metric in hospital-capacity planning in Germany, even though this metric neglects important drivers of economic efficiency, for example treatment costs and case mix. We suggest an alternative metric, which incorporates economic efficiency explicitly, and illustrate how this metric can be used in the hospital-capacity planning cycle. The practical setting of this study is the hospital capacity planning process in the German federal state of Rheinland-Pfalz. The planning process involves all 92 acute-care hospitals of this federal state. The study is based on standard hospital data, including annual costs, number of cases—disaggregated by medical departments and ICD codes, respectively—length-of-stay, certified beds, and occupancy rates. Using the developed metric, we identified 18 of the 92 hospitals as inefficient and targets for over-proportional capacity cuts. On the upside, we identified 15 efficient hospitals. The developed model and analysis has affected the federal state's most recent midium term planning cycle.
ISSN:1618-7598
1618-7601
DOI:10.1007/s10198-006-0021-6