Abstracts by keywords: benefits
Persistence problems in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: How can patient support programs (PSP) help?
The authors analyze the problem of low persistence in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and discuss the principles and potential benefits of patient support programs.
26.01.2023
Quality and benefit are also frequently used terms in the healthcare system, with which we emphasize that significant resources are used to ensure optimal “quality of care” and to create “benefits” for those affected. Examples are the proportion of medical manpower (approx. 20%) that is committed to quality assurance and the expenses that arise as part of the approval of medicines for the creation of benefit dossiers (approx. 1 million euros/dossier). Quality and benefit are are therefore used as different dimensions of added health value, whereby quality could be a necessary prerequisite for providing benefit, but benefit is not necessarily a prerequisite for quality. The increasing scarcity of resources in health systems requires not only the critical analysis of new expenditure, but also the justification of existing expenditure. The not insignificant expenditure on ensuring the quality and benefit of health services can no longer be accepted as an end in itself1. On the one hand, they must be subjected to a “clinical-economic” analysis, through which the effort and the returns achieved for patients and society are compared. In addition, the differentiated analysis of quality and benefit opens up new considerations for financing health services. In order to carry out this analysis, it is first necessary to describe what is meant by “quality” and “benefit” in the healthcare system.
31.03.2015
The so-called multi-criteria decision analysis (MCEA) can be used to support complex technology assessments. Multi-criteria decision analysis procedures have their origins in decision theory or operations research and are used there to make decisions under uncertainty. They assist decision makers in evaluating a finite number of alternative health interventions using a finite number of performance criteria. In addition to conjoint analysis, the elimination and choice translating reality method (ELECTRE) and the multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) (Lootsma/Schujit 1997), the most widely used multi-criteria decision analysis tools include the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).
24.01.2013
In Germany, medical care is largely financed by contributions from insured persons. This results in the normative and ethical obligation of statutory health insurance to provide the optimum level of health services with maximum benefit for the insured. It is important to reduce waste, use resources efficiently, and all results must be meaningful, especially for patients. The health insurance companies, together with the service providers and the patients, are responsible for achieving these goals and a primarily scientifically based approach (SGB V §§ 2, 12, 35b, 70). The question of what is useful is described, for example, in SGB V § 35b as “improving the state of health, shortening the duration of the illness, extending the lifespan, reducing side effects and improving the quality of life”. This maxim can be found in an identical form in the G-BA's Rules of Procedure, in the Drug Benefit Assessment Ordinance or in the IQWiG method paper for benefit assessment. The statement that the benefit assessment has to be based on “patient-relevant target values” is of particular importance. “In this context, “patient-relevant” should be understood as how a patient feels, can perceive their functions and activities or whether they survive.” (IQWiG 2011, p. 30f)
24.01.2013
Health care research and health care reality are closely intertwined. A constituent part of health services research is to analyze, evaluate and contribute to optimization of the reality of care. This is particularly important in the context of statutory health insurance. The implementation and optimization of care models is one of the core tasks of a health insurance company. Scientific evidence and health care management thus form a quasi-natural unit. The implementation of the findings from health services research into everyday care provides a direct benefit for those insured by the health insurance company as well as for the statutory health insurance.