Introduction
The publication “Why Economic Analysis of Health System Improvement Interventions Matters” explains the importance of conducting rigorous economic evaluations of health system improvement interventions. The existing literature is characterized by inadequate information on the best ways to reduce medical errors hence improving the quality of health care services offered to the public. Healthcare system stakeholders must come up with strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the improvement interventions adopted. However, due to limited economic evaluations, the players lack critical information to help formulate policies that will promote the ability of the intervention to reach the intended objectives. Various issues challenge the economic evaluation practices, such as determining the full costs of the interventions and the application of health outcomes instead of process measures of effectiveness. Thus, adopting rigorous economic evaluation techniques on the improvement interventions is essential in reducing the prevalence of medical errors, hence improving the quality of care offered to the patients.
Background
The high prevalence of medical errors is one of the challenges that greatly affects the delivery of healthcare services to patients suffering from various diseases such as stroke and ischemic heart disease. Medical errors involve the unintended acts of commission or omission that limit the healthcare services’ ability to meet the intended outcomes and sometimes may cause harm to the patients (Broughton & Marquez, 2016). The phenomenon also entails the failure to meet the established evidence-based standards by omitting various elements of steps of care that are deemed important. High occurrence of medical errors tends to have negative economic implications on the quality of care, thus adversely affecting critical stakeholders such as the patients, the health systems, and the community. Understanding the economic effects of these unintended acts is essential in formulating viable strategies to deal with them.
Research Methodology
The systematic review is the methodology adopted for deducting meaningful conclusions from the publication. A systematic review is a type of review whereby the researcher employs repeatable techniques to find, select and synthesize the available evidence regarding a formulated research question (Tawfik et al., 2019). It involves bringing together all the available information to create a single and cohesive story that provides detailed insights into a given research problem. Some advantages of utilizing this study methodology are that it reduces the bias by considering all the available empirical evidence, is thorough and transparent, and can be replicated. However, the technique is associated with various limitations, such as the fact that the method is time-consuming and the scope is usually narrow since its main intention is to answer the precise research questions formulated in advance. The research question that the systematic review of the publication will answer is the role of economic evaluations in determining effective interventions to reduce medical errors. The study will also assess the complications that may limit the adoption of the cost-effectiveness analysis on the intervention programs.
Results
The findings indicate that economic evaluations, especially cost analysis, are a better strategy for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions and can be employed to enhance the effectiveness of healthcare improvement interventions. Implementing these interventions tends to consume resources that could have been invested in other areas to improve the quality of care offered to the patients and reduce the spending on the providers’ part. Thus, it is important to determine whether the interventions are worth the costs associated before allocating resources to implement them. The vital information in the economic evaluation of the interventions includes the affordability, sustainability, and efficiency of the solutions in a specific setting (Broughton & Marquez, 2016). There are numerous interventions that can be employed to reduce medical errors, such as training the health care providers, enhancing patient record keeping, and improving the infrastructures utilized in care administration. Evaluating whether these interventions are affordable, sustainable, and efficient can help in making decisions on the interventions to adopt and how to implement them.
However, implementing economic analysis procedures is difficult in complex social systems, such as healthcare system improvement interventions. Adopting the analysis techniques tends to increase the costs associated with evaluating the medical error reduction programs, which may adversely affect their implementation. Conducting the cost-effectiveness examinations also consumes considerable time, which may delay the intervention implementation (Broughton & Marquez, 2016). The procedures also require a high level of expertise since it involves analyzing complicated concepts in complex social system intervention settings. In some instances, the healthcare facilities lack the relevant personnel to conduct the assessment, which may limit the implementation of the interventions even though dealing with medical errors is a matter of urgency. Time, expertise, and cost limitations are issues affecting the adoption of economic evaluations in health system improvement interventions.
Conclusion
Therefore, implementing rigorous economic evaluation procedures is important when implementing intervention programs for the reduction of medical errors. The high prevalence of medical errors is an issue that jeopardizes the provision of crucial services to people. The process of deducting meanings from the publication was a systematic analysis whereby the available evidence was selected and synthesized in accordance with the established research questions. The results showed that the application of economic evaluations could help determine the suitability of the improvement programs enacted to reduce medical errors. They also indicated that costs, time, and expertise limitations jeopardized the adoption of economic evaluation techniques in healthcare system improvement interventions.
Recommendations
One of the recommendations is that healthcare facilities consider adopting economic evaluation techniques to determine the suitability of the interventions implemented to deal with the high number of medical interventions. Although the process is complicated and associated with various limitations, such as costs and time, the benefits of conducting the analysis outweigh the challenges. They will be able to understand the suitability of the programs in terms of affordability, sustainability, and efficiency of the proposed interventions (Broughton & Marquez, 2016). The implementation of the interventions tends to consume a considerable amount of resources, including financial and human capital. Examining them from an economic point of view is more likely to enable the healthcare organizations involved to make informed decisions on whether their adoption is worth the resources channeled. Thus, the interventions should be evaluated from an economic perspective for a better understanding and final decision.
Healthcare organizations should consider adopting the cost-minimization technique when evaluating the economic aspects of the interventions. It is an analysis method mainly applied in the health sector and used to examine and compare the costs associated with adopting various interventions (Seguí et al., 2020). When it comes to dealing with medical errors, there are numerous health system improvement interventions that an organization can adopt. Using the cost-minimization techniques, the healthcare facilities can identify cost-effective interventions that can be implemented with the existing resources and is suitable for the setting for which it is adopted. One advantage of adopting a cost-minimization strategy is that it is simple to use and hence requires minimal expertise and time. It is also considered one of the most productive types of analysis when evaluating medical interventions. However, it is prone to limitations, such as that it can only be used to compare interventions that provide similar benefits
References
Broughton, E. I., & Marquez, L. (2016). Why Economic Analysis of Health System Improvement Interventions Matters. Frontiers in Public Health, 4(218), 1-4.
Seguí, F. L., Parella, J. F., García, X. G., Peña, J. M., Cuyàs, F. G., Mas, C. A., . . . Vidal-Alaball, J. (2020). A Cost-Minimization Analysis of a Medical Record-based, Store and Forward and Provider-to-provider Telemedicine Compared to Usual Care in Catalonia: More Agile and Efficient, Especially for Users. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 17(6).
Tawfik, G. M., Dila, K. A., Mohamed, M. Y., Tam, D. N., Kien, N. D., Ahmed, A. M., & Huy, N. T. (2019). A step by step guide for conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis with simulation data. Tropical Medicine and Health, 47(46), 1-9.
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