Competition and quality indicators in the health care sector: empirical evidence from the Dutch hospital sector

textabstractThere is much debate about the effect of competition in healthcare and especially the effect of competition on the quality of healthcare, although empirical evidence on this subject is mixed. The Netherlands provides an interesting case in this debate. The Dutch system could be characterized as a system involving managed competition and mandatory healthcare insurance. Information about the quality of care provided by hospitals has been publicly available since 2008. In this paper, we evaluate the relationship between quality scores for three diagnosis groups and the market power indicators of hospitals. We estimate the impact of competition on quality in an environment of liberalized pricing. For this research, we used unique price and production data relating to three diagnosis groups (cataract, adenoid and tonsils, bladder tumor) produced by Dutch hospitals in the period 2008–2011. We also used the quality indicators relating to these diagnosis groups. We reveal a negative relationship between market share and quality score for two of the three diagnosis groups studied, meaning that hospitals in competitive markets have better quality scores than those in concentrated markets. We therefore conclude that more competition is associated with higher quality scores

Diagnósticos de enfermagem, fatores relacionados e de risco no pós-operatório de cirurgia bariátrica

Objetivou-se com esta pesquisa identificar os principais diagnósticos, fatores relacionados e de risco da classe resposta cardiovascular/pulmonar, propostos pela NANDA, versão 2009-2011. Trata-se de estudo de série de caso, descritivo, realizado com vinte pacientes submetidos à cirurgia bariátrica em hospital público de Fortaleza-CE, Brasil. Duas enfermeiras especialistas em unidade de terapia intensiva coletaram os dados por meio de entrevista, exame físico e leitura do prontuário, que foram analisados a partir de estatística descritiva e mapeamento cruzado. Os diagnósticos de enfermagem identificados com frequência maior que 50% foram: débito cardíaco diminuído (75%), padrão respiratório ineficaz (65%), resposta disfuncional ao desmame ventilatório (55%) e perfusão tissular periférica ineficaz (75%), dos quais 14 eram fatores relacionados e cinco, de risco. Reconhece-se a necessidade de outros estudos para melhor definir o perfil diagnóstico dessa clientela e, assim, direcionar a assistência de enfermagem para a detecção precoce de complicações

Human resource management and productivity in the "Trust Game Corporation"

Contemporary production activity is crucially determined by the performance of complex tasks with the characteristics of corporate trust games. In this paper, we outline a productivity paradox showing that, under reasonable conditions, the non cooperative solution, that yields a suboptimal firm output, is the equilibrium of corporate trust games when relational preferences are not sufficiently high. We show that tournaments and steeper pay for performance schemes may crowd out cooperation in presence of players preferences for relational goods. These findings help to explain firm investment in workers' relationships and the puzzle on the less than expected use of such schemes