Performance Of EU Health Care Systems Investigated In New Study

Main Category: Medical Practice Management
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 06 Feb 2010 - 1:00 PST

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The performance of the European healthcare system will be evaluated in the EuroHOPE study (European Health Care Outcomes, Performance and Effectiveness) coordinated by the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and funded by the EU.

The project is an extension of the Perfect study carried out by THL in Finland to the European level. Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation has funded the Perfect project through its FinnWell programme.

The Perfect project developed a method that can be used to measure the cost-effectiveness of care on the basis of information recorded in registers. The project also created a comparative database that can be used for comparing the cost-effectiveness of care between hospitals, hospital districts, regions and population groups.

The comparative database can be utilised in a number of ways in the future.

At the system level, it can be used to evaluate whether the cost-effectiveness of healthcare services has increased or decreased. The same evaluation can also be performed on separate disease groups. In addition, hospitals or regions can monitor the development of the cost-effectiveness of their own operations and compare it with that of other hospitals and regions.

In the initial stages, the EuroHOPE study will be carried out in seven European countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (Scotland), Hungary and Italy.

The project utilises microeconometric methods to measure the performance, quality, use of resources and costs of healthcare in the treatment of five key public health problems or diseases: acute myocardial infarction, stroke, hip fracture, breast cancer and low-birth-weight premature infants.

Source: Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation