This paper introduces the present application situation of medical consumable materials in consumption, use, quality control and computer management. It presents the concrete contents of standard management in quality guarantee, rules and regulations, and cost reduction.
Costs and Cost Analysis ; Disposable Equipment ; economics ; standards ; Quality Control

The Prescription for Pharmacoeconomic Analysis (PFPA) of New Zealand was firstly published in 1999. The original version was reviewed in 2004 and version 2, approved and published in 2007, is the living document. The main purpose for this guideline is to provide an overview of the methods PHARMAC (Pharmaceutical Management of Agency) uses when conducting cost-utility analysis. Compared with version 1, version 2 involved and discussed the most frequently mentioned issues in pharmacoeconomic guidelines around the world. This paper describes the distinguishes between version 1 and 2, the advantages of version 2 as well as the amendments that will be made in PHARMAC's future work, in order to provide meaningful advice for standardizing and documenting methods in China
Costs and Cost Analysis ; Economics, Pharmaceutical ; Humans ; New Zealand

Liver diseases are one of the main causes of death, and their ever-increasing prevalence is threatening to cause significant damage both to individuals and society as a whole. This damage is especially serious for the economically active population in Korea. From the societal perspective, it is therefore necessary to consider the economic impacts associated with liver diseases, and identify interventions that can reduce the burden of these diseases. The cost-of-illness study is considered to be an essential evaluation technique in health care. By measuring and comparing the economic burdens of diseases to society, such studies can help health-care decision-makers to set up and prioritize health-care policies and interventions. Using economic theories, this paper introduces various study methods that are generally applicable to most disease cases for estimating the costs of illness associated with mortality, morbidity, disability, and other disease characteristics. It also presents concepts and scopes of costs along with different cost categories from different research perspectives in cost estimations. By discussing the epidemiological and economic grounds of the cost-of-illness study, the reported results represent useful information about several evaluation techniques at an advanced level, such as cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-utility analysis.
*Cost of Illness ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Delivery of Health Care/economics ; Humans ; Liver Diseases/*economics/pathology

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to analyze economical efficiency of home care service by comparing a cost-utility ratio(CUR) between home care and hospitalization. METHOD: The analytic framework of this study was constructed in 5 stages: Identifying the analytic perspectives, measurement of costs, measurement of utility, analysis of CUR, and sensitivity test. Data was collected by reviewing medical records, home care service records, medical fee claims, and other related research. RESULT: The mean of the annual total cost was 23,317,636 Won in home care and 73,739,352 Won in hospital care. QALY was 0.389 in home care and 0.474 in hospital care, so CUR was 299,712,545 QALY in home care and 777,841,266 QALY in hospital care. CONCLUSION: The findings affirmed that home care had an economical efficiency in the aspect of utility compared to hospitalization. Therefore, the findings of this study can be used to develop a governmental health policy or to expand the home care system. In addition, the cost-utility analysis framework and process of this study will be an example model for cost-utility analysis in nursing research. Therefore, it will be used as a guideline for future research related to cost-utility analysis in nursing.
Costs and Cost Analysis ; Home Care Services/*economics ; Hospitalization/economics ; Humans ; Korea ; *Quality-Adjusted Life Years

Expounding the status of the current domestic medical equipment maintenance management, and puting forward the strategic thinking of medical maintenance for the challenges of equipment maintenance management in the hospital. This discussion can be performed to control the maintenance costs of hospital effectively, increase the income and social benefits of the hospital.
Costs and Cost Analysis ; Equipment and Supplies, Hospital ; Maintenance and Engineering, Hospital ; economics ; Materials Management, Hospital ; economics

PURPOSE: Time-driven activity-based costing was applied to analyze the nursing activity cost and efficiency of a medical unit. METHODS: Data were collected at a medical unit of a general hospital. Nursing activities were measured using a nursing activities inventory and classified as 6 domains using Easley-Storfjell Instrument. Descriptive statistics were used to identify general characteristics of the unit, nursing activities and activity time, and stochastic frontier model was adopted to estimate true activity time. RESULTS: The average efficiency of the medical unit using theoretical resource capacity was 77%, however the efficiency using practical resource capacity was 96%. According to these results, the portion of non-added value time was estimated 23% and 4% each. The sums of total nursing activity costs were estimated 109,860,977 won in traditional activity-based costing and 84,427,126 won in time-driven activity-based costing. The difference in the two cost calculating methods was 25,433,851 won. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the time-driven activity-based costing provides useful and more realistic information about the efficiency of unit operation compared to traditional activity-based costing. So time-driven activity-based costing is recommended as a performance evaluation framework for nursing departments based on cost management.
Costs and Cost Analysis ; Hospitals, General/economics ; Humans ; Internal Medicine/*economics ; Nursing Service, Hospital/*economics ; Task Performance and Analysis ; Time Factors

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to analysize net income of a surgical nursing ward in a general hospital. METHOD: Data collection and analysis was conducted using a performance-based costing and activity-based costing method. RESULT: Direct nursing activities in the surgical ward were 68, indirect nursing activities were 10. The total cost volume of the surgical ward was calculated at won 119,913,334.5. The cost volume of the allocated medical department was won 91,588,200.3, and the ward consumed cost was won 28,325,134.2. The revenue of the surgical nursing ward was won 33,269,925.0. The expense of a surgical nursing ward was 28,325,134.2. Therefore, the net income of a surgical nursing ward was won 4,944,790.8. CONCLUSION: We suggest that to develop a more refined nursing cost calculation model, a standard nursing cost calculation system needs to be developed.
Costs and Cost Analysis ; General Surgery/*economics ; Hospitals, General/*economics ; Humans ; Nursing Service, Hospital/*economics ; Task Performance and Analysis

OBJECTIVETo measure quantitatively the health costs of 380 farmer families using the pesticides and influence factors, and to provide the base for establishing the protective measures.

METHODSBased on the surveyed data of rice producers in Anhui province, a quantitative analysis of health cost of pesticide application was conducted with COI, the influence factors on farmers' pesticide application have been examined.

RESULTSThe results shown that the health cost of pesticide application was as RMB 54.44 yuans per farmer a year. The influence factors of health cost were the amount and time of pesticide application, protective facilities, pesticide label illiteracy, age, gender and education level of farmers.

CONCLUSIONThe measures of reducing the health cost for pesticide application were to train the farmers for knowledge of pesticide application and occupational safety, to provide convenient and cheap protective equipment and instructions of pesticide application and to standardize pesticide labels.

Agriculture ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Health Care Costs ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; economics ; Occupational Health ; economics ; Pesticides ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study focused on analysing costs per visiting nursing care based on nursing activities in a public health center. METHOD: The Easley-Storfjell Instrument(1997) was used for a prospective descriptive analysis of self-records for workload data from 10 visiting nurses during 4 weeks on all nursing activities. In addition, analysis of the 478 visiting nursing records and cost data from 5 home visiting departments in public health centers during one year of 2003 was done. RESULT: The workload of visiting nurses by the type of model was identified as follows: Type I showed that caseloads made up 32.9 % of all nurse activities, and type II showed that the caseloads made up 45.8 %. Second, The cost per visit in type I was 33,088 won and 31,323 won in type II. Third, the estimated budgets were 1,902,436 won to 12,057,696 won for the type I model. and 4,151,316 won to 17,432,712 won for the type II model for one year. CONCLUSION: This study's results will contribute to baseline data used to establish on infrastructure for visiting nursing program and visiting nursing agencies based on the budget of visiting nursing services.
Community Health Nursing/*economics ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Humans ; Korea ; Public Health Nursing/*economics ; Urban Health Services/*economics

OBJECTIVETo analyze the unreasonable part of full cost of the public health service items in county level.

METHODSOn basis of typical survey in 2005, 18 questionnaires were released and the response rate was 100%. The whole cost and ladder apportionment of expense methods were employed to account the full cost of items including practice items, items required by government and nationwide items required by government provided by 4 centers for disease control and prevention in county level.

RESULTSIt was found that 28.4% - 54.9% nationwide items required by government had not been provided, but 2.8% - 10.2% items being not required by government had been provided. Furthermore the frequency of the items required by government was not up to par from 8 topmost to 2 bottommost on average every year. The efficiency was not high because of lacking in the vehicle for work, and 33.3% - 43.6% shortage of equipments for laboratory, and 18.1% - 45.8% logistic staff and technicians only 2/3 time of the whole year had a full workload. All the above resulted in the bias from the standard cost of items required by government.

CONCLUSIONFor compensating the cost of items reasonable and accurate by government, a kind standard cost of the items according to the government request should be established.

China ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Health Systems Agencies ; economics ; Preventive Health Services ; economics ; organization & administration ; Public Health Practice ; economics