What Is Health Economics?

1
What Is Health Economics?
2

• This applied field of study enables the problems
  involved with providing and promoting global
  health issues globally, to be systematically and
  rigorously examined. The overall goal of health
  economics is to understand the behavior of
  individuals, health care providers, public and
  private organizations and governments, when
  decisions are made, and this is typically
  achieved by applying economic theories of
  consumer, producer and social choice.
• As a branch of economics, its mainly concerned
  with the issues surrounding efficiency,
  effectiveness, value and behavior throughout the
  production and consumption of health and
  healthcare, and is extremely important when it
  comes to determining how health outcomes and
  lifestyle patterns can be improved.

3

• When did we first start using the term health
  economics?
• Often credited with the creation of health
  economics as a branch of classic economics,
  Kenneth Arrow wrote an article in 1963,
  theorizing about the conceptual distinctions
  between health and other goods.

4

• What makes health economics different to other
  areas?
• The presence of a third-party agent, intractable
  uncertainty in several dimensions, intervention
  by the government, barriers to entry, externality
  and asymmetric information are all factors that
  make health economics distinguishable from other
  forms of economics. When referring to a
  third-party agent in healthcare terms, it
  involves the patients health insurance provider,
  who is financially responsible for the healthcare
  goods and services that the insured patient
  consumes.

5

• Patient outcomes can never be predicted with 100
  accuracy, just as with financial concerns,
  meaning that uncertainty is part and parcel of
  health and healthcare. Asymmetric information is
  known as the gap in knowledge that exists between
  a physician and a patient that which creates a
  distinct advantage for the physician.
• When it comes to externalities, these commonly
  occur when healthcare and health is being
  considered, and perhaps most notably in the
  context of the health impacts of infectious
  diseases or opioid abuse, for example.

6

• What financial information do health economists
  evaluate?
• Multiple types of financial information are
  evaluated by professional health economists,
  including costs, charges and expenditures.
• What is the primary purpose of health economics?
• Used to help promote healthy lifestyles and
  positive health outcomes through studying
  healthcare providers, hospitals and clinics,
  managed care and public health promotion
  activities, health economics can also be used to
  address more pressing, global issues, such as
  migration, climate change, obesity and pandemics,
  to name but a few.

7

• Why do we need health economics?
• In studying how resources that may be in short
  supply are allocated among alternative uses for
  the care of sickness, and used to promote,
  maintain and improve health, along with the
  costs, benefits and distribution patterns of
  healthcare and health-related services, health
  economics seeks to help medical professionals
  deliver the largest array of services to the
  biggest number of patients.

8

• If you require more detailed information about
  health economics, or are looking for a service
  that can help you design an observational study,
  conduct retrospective and prospective database
  studies or provide you with health policy
  expertise relevant to the changing global
  healthcare environment (among many others), a
  reputable life sciences organization might be
  able to help you.

9

• Agile Scientific in Columbus is a life sciences
  organization that brings decades of industry
  knowledge, expertise, processes, best practices,
  and systems to companies. Agile Scientifics
  clinical services function to accelerate all
  facets of drug development, ensure compliance at
  a global level and optimize pipeline value / ROI.
  Agile Scientific Group LLC is fortunate to
  partner with smaller virtual organizations and
  Fortune 500 Life Sciences companies alike. We
  have extensive experience providing focused,
  pragmatic clinical solutions to our sponsor Life
  Science organizations and CROs across all areas
  of Drug Safety, Regulatory Affairs, HEOR /
  Pharmacoepidemiology, Quality Assurance.