New Health Insurance Study Findings Have Been Reported by Investigators at University of Amsterdam (Efficiency of private and public primary health…

New Health Insurance Study Findings Have Been Reported by Investigators at University of Amsterdam (Efficiency of private and public primary health facilities accredited by the National Health Insurance Authority in Ghana)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Current study results on Health Insurance have been published. According to news reporting originating from Amsterdam, Netherlands, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "Despite improvements in a number of health outcome indicators partly due to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Ghana is unlikely to attain all its health-related millennium development goals before the end of 2015. Inefficient use of available limited resources has been cited as a contributory factor for this predicament."

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Amsterdam, "This study sought to explore efficiency levels of NHIS-accredited private and public health facilities; ascertain factors that account for differences in efficiency and determine the association between quality care and efficiency levels. The study is a cross-sectional survey of NHIS-accredited primary health facilities (n = 64) in two regions in southern Ghana. Data Envelopment Analysis was used to estimate technical efficiency of sampled health facilities while Tobit regression was employed to predict factors associated with efficiency levels. Spearman correlation test was performed to determine the association between quality care and efficiency. Overall, 20 out of the 64 health facilities (31 %) were optimally efficient relative to their peers. Out of the 20 efficient facilities, 10 (50 %) were Public/government owned facilities; 8 (40 %) were Private-for-profit facilities and 2 (10 %) were Private-not-for-profit/Mission facilities. Mission (Coef. = 52.1; p = 0.000) and Public (Coef. = 42.9; p = 0.002) facilities located in the Western region (predominantly rural) had higher odds of attaining the 100 % technical efficiency benchmark than those located in the Greater Accra region (largely urban). No significant association was found between technical efficiency scores of health facilities and many technical quality care proxies, except in overall quality score per the NHIS accreditation data (Coef. = -0.3158; p< 0.05) and SafeCare Essentials quality score on environmental safety for staff and patients (Coef. = -0.2764; p< 0.05) where the association was negative. The findings suggest some level of wastage of health resources in many healthcare facilities, especially those located in urban areas."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The Ministry of Health and relevant stakeholders should undertake more effective need analysis to inform resource allocation, distribution and capacity building to promote efficient utilization of limited resources without compromising quality care standards."

For more information on this research see: Efficiency of private and public primary health facilities accredited by the National Health Insurance Authority in Ghana. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 2015;13():1-14. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation can be contacted at: Biomed Central Ltd, 236 Grays Inn Rd, Floor 6, London WC1X 8HL, England. (BioMed Central - www.biomedcentral.com/; Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation - www.resource-allocation.com)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting R.K. Alhassan, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Inst Global Hlth & Dev, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Additional authors for this research include E. Nketiah-Amponsah, J. Akazili, N. Spieker, D.K. Arhinful and T.F.R. de Wit.

Keywords for this news article include: Amsterdam, Netherlands, Europe, Insurance Companies, Health Insurance, University of Amsterdam.

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