Evidence supported health service planning

Research area: HTA-methods & steering instruments

Project lead: Stefan Mathis
Duration: October 2008 - August 2009

Project co-operation: Brigitte Piso, Claudia Wild, Franz Piribauer
Literature search and - documentation: Tarquin Mittermayr
Suggested by: LBI-HTA
Publication: HTA Project Report 21 - https://eprints.aihta.at/843

Background:
The delivery of health services should meet the population’s needs and include an efficient use of health care resources. Recent nationwide surveys in Germany (Sachverständigenrat für Konzertierte Aktion im Gesundheitswesen), the USA (Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies) and Great Britain (Wessex Institute of Public Health Medicine) show substantial deficits in the information about the status of needs and the status of the current supply (unmet needs, ineffective health care, inefficient health care and inappropriate health care). Additionally, it is stated that insufficient use of health service research is made in important fields, and also that advanced methods in health service research need to be established.
This project addresses health services planning as a key factor for structuring the health system. Information about the status quo of care delivery as well as the status quo of the population’s morbidity enters the process of planning. This information is considered for health governance plans. Scientific reflection is needed to utilise established technical knowledge about certain aspects and future approaches of health services planning. This includes evidence about the planning method itself as well as elements of evidence for planning. Elements include information gathering strategies, methods to measure the confirmed need, methods to calculate prospective developments and methods to assess the efficacy and efficiency of health technologies. The further development and consolidation of methods of evidence based health service planning may impact short and long term actions of health policy decision making, organisation, steering and financing the health system.

Aims and research objectives:
The aim of the project is to identify health service research methods – especially methods of health service planning, to analyse them and to customise these methods for the utilisation for the internal health technology assessment agenda.

Methods:
Systematic literature review and analysis of the results (search in medical portals and hand search, including health service research institu-tions).