Does responsibility affect the public valuation of health care interventions? A relative valuation approach to health care safety

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright © 2012, International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).Objective - Health services often spend more on safety interventions than seems cost-effective. This study investigates whether the public value safety-related health care improvements more highly than the same improvements in contexts where the health care system is not responsible. Method - An online survey was conducted to elicit the relative importance placed on preventing harms caused by 1) health care (hospital-acquired infections, drug administration errors, injuries to health care staff), 2) individuals (personal lifestyle choices, sports-related injuries), and 3) nature (genetic disorders). Direct valuations were obtained from members of the public by using a person trade-off or “matching” method. Participants were asked to choose between two preventative interventions of equal cost and equal health benefit per person for the same number of people, but differing in causation. If participants indicated a preference, their strength of preference was measured by using person trade-off. Results - Responses were obtained from 1030 people, reflecting the sociodemographic mix of the UK population. Participants valued interventions preventing hospital-acquired infections (1.31) more highly than genetic disorders (1.0), although drug errors were valued similarly to genetic disorders (1.07), and interventions to prevent injury to health care staff were given less weight than genetic disorders (0.71). Less weight was also given to interventions related to lifestyle (0.65) and sports injuries (0.41). Conclusion - Our results suggest that people do not attach a simple fixed premium to “safety-related” interventions but that preferences depend more subtly on context. The use of the results of such public preference surveys to directly inform policy would therefore be premature.Brunel University

Managers Handbook for Software Development

Methods and aids for the management of software development projects are presented. The recommendations are based on analyses and experiences with flight dynamics software development. The management aspects of organizing the project, producing a development plan, estimation costs, scheduling, staffing, preparing deliverable documents, using management tools, monitoring the project, conducting reviews, auditing, testing, and certifying are described

Grow more wool

THE amount of wool that each sheep grows is determined by many things, including the amount and quality of pasture available or how the sheep are fed, the stocking rate, the general health and thrift of the sheep and other management considerations such as cropping and the time of lambing

The effect of mulesing and tailstripping at lamb marking on subsequent lamb growth and incidence of fly strike

THE modified mules and tailstrip operation has been shown to be highly effective in reducing the incidence of crutch strike in sheep. In Western Australia the operation is usually performed on ewe weaners or hoggets immediately after either crutching or shearing

Weaner feeding practices need review

Many fanners feed large amounts of grain to their weaners over summer and autumn, in the belief that this is necessary for high lifetime production. The economics of this are open to doubt; in fact, the results of a recent experiment at Wongan Hills Research Station suggested that weaner feeding practices need review

Lice and tick in sheep

Body lice and so called ticks or keds are the most serious of the external parasites which infest sheep in Western Australia, and unless they are controlled by systematic dipping, these pests can be the cause of considerable financial loss to flocl owners. The sheep body louse (Damalinaia ovis), which is able to propagate under hot and dry conditions, has a wide distribution and occurs in both the agricultural and pastoral areas. The so-called tick or ked (Melophogus ovinus), has a much more restricted distribution and is confined to the higher rainall areas of the South-West proportion of the State

Stocking rates on light land : Wongan Hills Research Station

THE two most important things that determine the rate of return on invested capital in Merino sheep breeding and grazing are the stocking rate and lambing percentage

The Software Engineering Laboratory: An operational software experience factory

For 15 years, the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) has been carrying out studies and experiments for the purpose of understanding, assessing, and improving software and software processes within a production software development environment at NASA/GSFC. The SEL comprises three major organizations: (1) NASA/GSFC, Flight Dynamics Division; (2) University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science; and (3) Computer Sciences Corporation, Flight Dynamics Technology Group. These organizations have jointly carried out several hundred software studies, producing hundreds of reports, papers, and documents, all of which describe some aspect of the software engineering technology that was analyzed in the flight dynamics environment at NASA. The studies range from small, controlled experiments (such as analyzing the effectiveness of code reading versus that of functional testing) to large, multiple project studies (such as assessing the impacts of Ada on a production environment). The organization's driving goal is to improve the software process continually, so that sustained improvement may be observed in the resulting products. This paper discusses the SEL as a functioning example of an operational software experience factory and summarizes the characteristics of and major lessons learned from 15 years of SEL operations