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Benchmarking of productivity in the Nordic countries. Jon Magnussen Nordic Case Mix Conference Helsinki 2010. Denmark Kim Rose Olsen Anette Søberg Rød Jes Søgaard Anni Ankjær-Jensen Janni Kilsmark Finland ) Unto Häkkinen Miika Linna Mikko Peltola Timo Seppälä Kirsi Vitikainen.
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Benchmarking of productivity in the Nordic countries Jon Magnussen Nordic Case Mix Conference Helsinki 2010
Denmark Kim Rose Olsen Anette Søberg Rød Jes Søgaard Anni Ankjær-Jensen Janni Kilsmark Finland) Unto Häkkinen Miika Linna Mikko Peltola Timo Seppälä Kirsi Vitikainen Norway Jon Magnussen Sverre Kittelsen Kjersti Hernæs Kjartan S Anthun Sweden Clas Rehnberg Emma Medin Contributors
Nordic model - similarities • Common goals and aspirations • Equity • Public participation • Common structural features • Tax based funding • Decentralization – the role of regions, counties and municipalities • (Local) Political governance
But: Differences in health policy • Governance • Financing and contracting • Choice and rights • There is a common model but we differ in how we approach important issues
Financing • Sweden and Finland both use DRGs but have local variations • Finland mostly (?) for budgetary purposes • Sweden partly for budgetary purpose, partly for activity based financing • Geographical resource allocation less of an issue
Financing • Norway have used DRGs in activity based financing since 1997 • Denmark introduced DRGs as a marginal payment in 1999, but have increased the use to cover 50 % of income in 2007 • Centrally initiated uniform models for the whole country
Our approach • Productivity analysis on hospital level data • Two separate analysis • 1999-2004; Norwegian hospital reform • 2005-2007; Specialised health care in Norway • Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with Farrell technical productivity • Bootstrapping to test differences and estimate confidence intervals • Second stage analysis: • Reform effects • Financing models • Structural factors
Data envelopment analysis (DEA) method y y + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + x x a) Feasability b) Free Disposal y y + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + x x c) Convexity d) Minimum extrapolation
Production model • Outputs 1999-2004: • DRG-weighted Inpatients in 3 groups • Medical, Surgical, Others • DRG-weighted Day care patients in 2 groups • Medical, Surgical • Number of Outpatients • Outputs 2005-2007: • DRG-weighted inpatients • DRG-weighted day care • Number of outpatients
Challenges • Finland/Sweden – specialty discharge rather than hospital discharge • Denmark – DK-DRG • Day care – and outpatient visits
Production model • Inputs: • Operating costs in real value • Problems: • Comparability of price level for hospital inputs, variation across hospitals and remaining variation across countries • Consistent removal of capital costs? • Consistent removal of costs associated with research, teaching, psychiatric care etc etc • Aggregation problem • Sweden and Norway cannot always use hospital level data • Scale interpretations are problematic, Productivity/CRS model used
DRG-weights • 1999-2004: • Common Nordic weights as (weighted) average of NO/Fin/Swe cost weights • 2005-2007: • Norwegian weights • Aggregate weights for complicated/uncomplicated • Separate (calibrated) Danish weights • Ideally: Patient level data grouped – so far not possible
2nd stage • Reform has increased productivity level by approx 4 % • Robust to different specifications • And: • Changes in Activity based financing (ABF) has no effect (?) • Changes in case-mix has no effect • Length of stay (LOS) longer than expected (within each DRG) is associated with lower productivity (severity or inefficiency)
Second stage analysis • Country • Year • Region • Teaching hospital • Case-mix index • Length of stay deviation • Share of outpatient activity • Size
Summary of results • Significant higher levels of productivity in Finland • Small differences between Norge, Sverige og Danmark • Large intra country variations • Diseconomies of scale? • Could be case-mix • Careful interpretation because different definitions of units • Other explanatory variables – not significant • Thus LOS deviation, no longer different
Speculation • Same result in three different analyes of Norway and Finland (1999, 1999-2004, 2005-2007) • Same result in two analyses of Norway/Sweden (1999-2004, 2005-2007) • Why? • Personnell mix? • Level of personnell • Capitalization? • Case-mix • Different institutional setting?
The way forward • Using patient level data to provide a common grouping of patients • Harmonizing measurement of day care and outpatient activity • Cost weights – or possibly more disaggregated analysis • Micro level analysis to understand differences • A larger dataset to be able to test second stage variables