Biomedical subjects

Jens Leth Hougaard

Publications and source records attributed to Jens Leth Hougaard.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

A note on health care productivity with uncertain data.

The present paper suggests extending the FDH-method, known from the efficiency measurement literature, to cover interval production data. Interval data represent a direct way to handle data uncertainty and problems with data comparability which seem particularly prevalent concerning health care applications. We illustrate the method using a simple 1-input-2-output model on health care data from the OECD health statistics.

Delivery of Health Care↗

PubMed2005

On the aggregation of health status measures.

In the present paper, we address the problem of finding conditions under which aggregation of individual health status measurements (e.g. QALYs) is meaningful in the sense that there is a universal unit of measurement for health. The problem is studied in a model where different aspects of health take the form of Lancasterian characteristics to be produced by the individuals using commodities obtained in the market. For a meaningful unit of measurement to exist, marginal rates of substitution between different aspects of health should not differ among individuals, and for this to happen in an equilibrium of the economy considered, certain assumptions of separability (of technology and/or preferences) must be satisfied. This means that universal measures of health will be meaningful only if there are not too many spillovers in achieving different aspects of health.

Denmark↗

PubMed2004

Improvement potential in Danish elderly care.

This paper examines Danish elderly care resource utilization among municipalities. The available production data are aggregated, which means that it is virtually impossible to allocate costs to specific services. We show that Multi-directional Efficiency Analysis (MEA) provides a much more subtle performance picture than Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) because we are able to assess the input specific relative improvement potentials. The empirical results show considerable improvement potential for all inputs. The largest relative potential for improvement is found for administrative staff.

Aged↗