Australian health review : a publication of the Australian Hospital Association
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Hospital-specific outcome measures based on routine data are useful for stimulating interest in quality of care and for suggesting avenues for more in-depth analyses. They might also identify serious, once-in-a-lifetime failures of health care. ⋯ This is because differences in outcome measures across hospitals can be due to differences in types of patients seen (casemix), differences in data quality, and the play of chance; rather than differences in the quality of care. End-users of such analyses should be aware of these technical difficulties, otherwise skilled health workers in high-quality hospitals might be subjected to unwarranted criticism.
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The Australian Health Care Agreements govern the relationship between the Commonwealth and States about public hospital funding. The incentives enshrined in the Agreements can shape policy priorities. ⋯ This paper argues that the negotiations should focus on two key areas where Commonwealth-State frictions are high but reform is feasible. Specifically it is suggested that the Commonwealth should contribute its funding of public hospital inpatient services on a casemix basis, and secondly, should fund outpatient services directly.
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This study investigates how accurately the waiting times of patients about to join a waiting list are predicted by the types of statistics disseminated via web-based waiting time information services. Data were collected at a public hospital in Sydney, Australia, on elective surgery activity and waiting list behaviour from July 1995 to June 1998. ⋯ The accuracy of the tested statistics varied greatly, being affected more by the characteristics and behaviour of a surgeon's waiting list than by how the statistics were derived. For those surgeons whose waiting times were often over six months, commonly used statistics can be very poor at forecasting patient waiting times.
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Comparative Study
Funding Victoria's public hospitals: the casemix policy of 2000-2001.
On 1 July 1993 Victoria became the first Australian state to use casemix information to set budgets for its public hospitals commencing with casemix funding for inpatient services. Victoria's casemix funding approach now embraces inpatient, outpatient and rehabilitation services.
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This paper presents an outline of the socio-demographic features of the Australian Capital Territory (the ACT) and of its health care system. I describe how health care resources are allocated in the government sector, present a more detailed description of the way that hospital services are purchased, and summarise the government's policy directions for health. ⋯ In total, the ACT government appears to be on the right track. However, I argue that more rapid progress might be possible if there were greater collaboration between the Territory health authority and the relatively powerful private medical profession.