Greater value for medical expenditure sought

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32516, 28 January 1971, Page 3

Greater value for medical expenditure sought

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 27. As the pressure on medical services increased, greater “mileage” would have to be obtained from every dollar spent on health, said a Health Department statistician, Mr R. J. Rose, today.

Mr Rose, who is in charge of the National Health Statistics Centre, recently attended a meeting of statistical experts in Geneva called by the World Health Organisation.

He said that greater health consciousness and increased costs of medical services because of scientific advances in medicine, had made overall spending on health the major item of public expenditure in most countries today. The opinion of the W.H.O. meeting, he said, was that

the only answer to rising costs and rising demands—against limitation of resources in both money and manpower—was greater efficiency and effectiveness. Business methods

The meeting felt that this could be accomplished by using the same management principles as used in business. This would subject each health programme to critical examination.

While the necessity to plan and evaluate was universally acknowledged, there was no established system for going about it. However, Mr Rose said, New Zealand was well to the fore in the application of new management techniques to its health service activities.

“The Health Services Research Unit plans and evaluates general health services,

and another unit specialising in hospital design is contemplated. “If these units are to carry out their functions effectively, a new statistical approach will be required so that the right type of information is available when needed as a factual base for decision making,” Mr Rose said. House interviews A likely innovation in New Zealand, he said, was the household interview in which trained interviewers (probably public health nurses) would obtain information from samples of households. Such information would include the incidence of acute and chronic disorders, their effect on the individual, days spent in bed, days away from work, the use made of various health services, and the financial cost of illnesses.

The advantages of the method were that it provided a basis for continued medical research and for suggestions about the need for doctors, medical people, and the manner in which- preventive, therapeutic and rehabilitation activities could be arranged. “The great disadvantage is that the method is expensive, requiring a continuous cycle of interviewing to be really effective,” Mr Rose said.