36 research outputs found

    The cost of health-related brain drain to the WHO African Region

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    The African Region continues to experience loss of a sizeable number of highly skilled health professionals (physicians, nurses, dentists and pharmacists) to Australia, North America and European Union. Past attempts to estimate cost of migration were limited to education cost only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objective of this study was to estimate the social cost of emigration of doctors and nurses from the African Region to the developed countries. The cost information used in this study was obtained from one nonprofit primary and secondary school and one public university in Kenya. The cost estimates represent unsubsidized cost. The loss incurred by African countries through emigration is obtained by compounding the cost of educating a medical doctor and a nurse over the period between the age of emigration and the retirement age in recipient countries. The main findings were as follows: total cost of educating a single medical doctor from primary school to university is US65,997;foreverydoctorthatemigrates,acountrylosesaboutUS65,997; for every doctor that emigrates, a country loses about US1,854,677 returns from investment; total cost of educating one nurse from primary school to college of health sciences is US43,180;foreverynursethatemigrates,acountrylosesaboutUS43,180; for every nurse that emigrates, a country loses about US1,213,463 returns from investment. Developed countries continue to deprive African countries of billions of dollars worth of invaluable investments embodied in their human resources. If the current trend of poaching of scarce human resources for health (and other professionals) from African countries is not curtailed, the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals would remain dismal. Such continued plunder of investments embodied in human resources contributes to further underdevelopment of Africa and to keeping majority of her people in the vicious circle of poverty. Therefore, both developed and developing countries need to urgently develop and implement strategies for addressing this issue. African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 13 (3-4) 2006: pp. 1-1

    Benefit-cost analysis of electronic claims processing under Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme.

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    OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit-cost of E-claims. A benefit-cost analysis was used to evaluate the efficiency of E-claims from the perspective of the providers and the purchaser. DESIGN: A benefit-cost analysis approach was taken for this economic evaluation. Furthermore, we estimated the incremental benefit-cost ratio (IBCR) of the intervention under assessment. PARTICIPANTS: Purchasers and healthcare providers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) of Ghana were the study population. RESULTS: The analysis was stratified according to providers and purchaser. Cost incurred in processing claims electronically and manually were estimated by assessing the resource use and their corresponding costs. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the robustness of the results to variations in discount rate and proportions of claims processed under E-claims compared with paper claims. The combined sample of providers and purchaser made incremental gains from processing claims electronically. The IBCR was -19.75, 25.56 and 5.10 for all (sample) providers, purchaser and both providers and purchaser, respectively. When projected for the 330 facilities submitting claims to the NHIS claims processing centre (CPC) as at December 2014, the IBCR were -35.20, 25.56 and 90.06 for all providers, purchaser and both providers and purchaser. The results were sensitive to the discount rate used and proportions of E-claims compared with paper claims. CONCLUSION: Electronic processing of claims is more efficient compared with manual processing, hence provide an economic case for scaling it up to cover many more healthcare facilities and NHIS CPCs in the Ghana

    The cost of health professionals' brain drain in Kenya

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    BACKGROUND: Past attempts to estimate the cost of migration were limited to education costs only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objectives of this study were: (i) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of Kenyan doctors to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA); (ii) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of nurses to seven OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, UK, USA); and (iii) to describe other losses from brain drain. METHODS: The costs of primary, secondary, medical and nursing schools were estimated in 2005. The cost information used in this study was obtained from one non-profit primary and secondary school and one public university in Kenya. The cost estimates represent unsubsidized cost. The loss incurred by Kenya through emigration was obtained by compounding the cost of educating a medical doctor and a nurse over the period between the average age of emigration (30 years) and the age of retirement (62 years) in recipient countries. RESULTS: The total cost of educating a single medical doctor from primary school to university is US65,997;andforeverydoctorwhoemigrates,acountrylosesaboutUS 65,997; and for every doctor who emigrates, a country loses about US 517,931 worth of returns from investment. The total cost of educating one nurse from primary school to college of health sciences is US43,180;andforeverynursethatemigrates,acountrylosesaboutUS 43,180; and for every nurse that emigrates, a country loses about US 338,868 worth of returns from investment. CONCLUSION: Developed countries continue to deprive Kenya of millions of dollars worth of investments embodied in her human resources for health. If the current trend of poaching of scarce human resources for health (and other professionals) from Kenya is not curtailed, the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals would remain bleak. Such continued plunder of investments embodied in human resources contributes to further underdevelopment of Kenya and to keeping a majority of her people in the vicious circle of ill-health and poverty. Therefore, both developed and developing countries need to urgently develop and implement strategies for addressing the health human resource crisis

    Using co-authorship networks to map and analyse global Neglected Tropical Disease research with an affiliation to Germany

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    Neglected tropical disease research has changed considerably in recent decades, and the German government is committed to addressing its past neglect of NTD research. Our aim was to use an innovative social network analysis of bibliometric data to map neglected tropical disease research networks that are inside of and affiliated with Germany, thereby enabling data-driven health policy decision-making. We created and analysed co-author networks from publications in the SCOPUS database, with a focus on five diseases. We found that Germany's share of global publication output for NTDs is approximately half that of other medical research fields. Furthermore, we identified institutions with prominent NTD research within Germany and strong research collaborations between German institutions and partners abroad, mostly in other high-income countries. This allowed an assessment of strong collaborations for further development, e.g., for research capacity strengthening in low-income-countries, but also for identifying missed opportunities for collaboration within the network. Through co-authorship network analysis of individual researcher networks, we identified strong performers by using classic bibliometric parameters, and we identified academic talent by social network analysis parameters on an individual level
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