The Pros and Cons of Cost Effectiveness Analysis
There is no doubt that the quality of services and their impact on customers is among the key priorities in any field of business. Considering that all businesses are based on the rational use of the existing financial, material, and human resources, the significance of operations’ economic feasibility also cannot be doubted. One analytical tool that allows taking both priorities into account to compare and contrast the expired costs and gained benefits is cost-effectiveness analysis that is used to evaluate various interventions in healthcare.
Speaking about the pros of this tool, it is necessary to focus on the availability of different options related to the comparison. For instance, it helps to comparatively analyze interventions and programs that are designed for addressing both the same health problem and dissimilar conditions (World Health Organization, 2019; Bertram et al., 2016). One more advantage of using the tool in healthcare is modern researchers’ ability to make evaluations centered on certain demographic groups, which can be helpful if financial resources are limited (Bertram et al., 2016).
As for the disadvantages of cost-effectiveness analysis, it often happens that its results cannot be applied universally due to differences in the costs of services that relate to geographical locations and providers’ priorities (Bertram et al., 2016). For example, some providers regard the survival of a child more important than that of an elderly person, which impacts the outcomes of their analysis.
The choice of the most effective metrics for analyzing healthcare services presents an important issue. Nowadays, many health organizations focus on outcome measures and the costs of services, whereas process metrics seem to be underestimated (World Health Organization, 2019). Potentially, the results of cost-effectiveness analysis can become more accurate with the implementation of process metrics such as waiting times, staffing ratios, readmission rates, and even more subjective measures related to patient satisfaction.
Changes to Scope-of-Practice Regulations
Patient safety and the presence of positive treatment outcomes greatly depend on the professionalism of nurses and other healthcare providers. Numerous legislative initiatives that have been proposed in the United States are aimed at implementing the sets of rules that help define specific tasks that different categories of healthcare workers can perform when caring for their clients (McMichael, Safriet, & Buerhaus, 2018).
The laws that introduce restrictions related to healthcare professionals’ scope of practice are specific for different states, and they impact the situation with the staff shortage. Sometimes, such laws fail to be beneficial to patient outcomes, employee satisfaction, and staffing levels. It happens due to a variety of reasons, including physicians’ need to be financially responsible for the performance of their assistants (McMichael et al., 2018). Nowadays, existing scope-of-practice regulations significantly affect the supply of caregivers.
The implementation of changes expanding the scope of practice can enable healthcare providers to perform more tasks at work, thus improving the situation with the shortage of staff and limited access to services. Potential reasons why many state authorities are unwilling to make such changes relate to significant legislative barriers and safety considerations (Manski, Hoffmann, & Rowthorn, 2015).
For instance, according to Manski et al. (2015), many of these barriers are inextricably connected to the existing licensing requirements and penalties for healthcare specialists who violate such rules. Also, analyzing this problem, it can be important to pay attention to the need for changes to professional training programs for students with and without professional experience. In many instances, there are limited opportunities to implement educational changes to make sure that health providers can fulfill some responsibilities of their colleagues without detracting from patient safety.
References
Bertram, M. Y., Lauer, J. A., De Joncheere, K., Edejer, T., Hutubessy, R., Kieny, M. P., & Hill, S. R. (2016). Cost-effectiveness thresholds: Pros and cons. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 94(12), 925-930.
Manski, R. J., Hoffmann, D., & Rowthorn, V. (2015). Increasing access to dental and medical care by allowing greater flexibility in scope of practice. American Journal of Public Health, 105(9), 1755-1762.
McMichael, B. J., Safriet, B. J., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). The extraregulatory effect of nurse practitioner scope-of-practice laws on physician malpractice rates. Medical Care Research and Review, 75(3), 312-326.
World Health Organization. (2019). Cost-effectiveness analysis for health interventions. Web.