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Measuring medicos : Comments
By Andrew Leigh, published 27/3/2008Making data on hospitals publicly available is a useful first step to spur reform.
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For decades it was maintained that the hospitals in the ACT were the most expensive in Australia. Millions and millions of dollars was spent hiring consultants to try and reduce the costs of ACT hospitals.
Two separate individuals found that errors in stastical analysis explained how is apparently appeared that the ACT was expensive when compared to the average cost of all hospitals in NSW for example, even though the ACT spent less per head than NSW on health.
A NATSEM report later verified the findings of these individuals.
https://guard.canberra.edu.au/natsem/index.php?mode=download&file_id=686
However prior to this report, it was maintained by politicans that the hospitals were underperforming.
Later a report into the Royal Melbourne Hospital found that the hospital excutive was more concerned about saving money than patient welfare.
It is easy to forget that successive government policies have bought our public hospital system to this point. Over a decade ago it was decided to reduce medical school intake, now as a result of the political decisions made in the past there is a dr shortage in Australia, the short term vision was that by reducing the medical intake of undergrads this would lead to monetary savings, where in fact it has had a reverse effect and the law of supply and demand has come into play.
Health performance is not a simple system, for more than three decades the numbers of public hospital beds have been reduced to less than 50% of what they were.
The graded performance of politicans and health bureacrats, would be sitting in the corner with a large D on their heads.