Cost-sharing in the Greek Health Centres: The Administrative Personnel Aspects

Cost-sharing was introduced in Greece to supplement the state finance and social insurance funds and make patients cost-conscious. A questionnaire was distributed to 193 administrative personnel (response rate 96 per cent). The research was conducted from June 2011 to May 2012. Statistical analysis was performed using the Pearson x2 test, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the t-test and the Mann-Whitney test at p<0.05 level of significance. 92 per cent of the respondents said that patients complied with the payment of fees and 41.5 per cent that their visits to health centres have been reduced. 64 per cent of health centres do not employ only administrative personnel for the collection of medical fees but also nurses, physicians and technicians. At 85 per cent of health centres information technology systems are not used for the collection of medical fees. Although cost-sharing has contributed to the rational use of health centres’ services, it does not sufficiently corresponds to the expectations for effective provision of health care services

Economic Factors And Individual Investor Behavior: The Case Of The Greek Stock Exchange

This study undertook an empirical survey of the factors, which mostly influence individual investor behavior in the Greek stock exchange. The results revealed by our sample of 150 respondents confirm that there seems to be a certain degree of correlation between the factors that behavioral finance theory and previous empirical evidence identify as the influencing factors for the average equity investor, and the individual behavior of active investors in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) influenced by the overall trends prevailing at the time of the survey in the ASE

Assessment of interoperability in multi-vendor VSC-HVDC systems : interim results of the Best Paths DEMO #2

This paper describes the methodology and interim results from the ongoing European project Best Paths DEMO #2, which is the first attempt to undertake systematic investigation on interoperability in multi-vendor VSC-HVDC systems. The study is based on state-of-the-art technologies provided by three world-class HVDC vendors and involves TSOs and academics for investigations covering various HVDC layouts, from point-to-point to radial and meshed multi-terminal structures. The paper describes the methodology used to assess and maximize interoperability, which comprises two stages: the first one relies on electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation tools, while the second and ongoing one relies on real-time simulation with actual control cubicles provided by HVDC vendors. The paper mainly reports on the different tasks which were carried out during the first stage (EMT simulations) and exhibits the results observed. The main tasks and results are listed as follows: - Commonly agreed definition of interoperability - Definition of common converter specifications for all involved HVDC vendors, based on the ENTSO-E Network Code for realism and replicability - Definition of 5 different DC systems (including DC grids) on which interoperability should be assessed - Provision of detailed vendor-specific EMT converter models, and their individual validation - Assessment of interoperability on more than 1.000 realistic scenarios, from which 15% are representative of actual interoperability issues between the vendors - First set of recommendations to maximize interoperability Finally, the paper provides insights on the second and ongoing stage of the project based on real-time simulation using actual vendor control cubicles for deeper investigations

Economic evaluation of pharmacogenomic-guided antiplatelet treatment in Spanish patients suffering from acute coronary syndrome participating in the U-PGx PREPARE study

BackgroundCardiovascular diseases and especially Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) constitute a major health issue impacting millions of patients worldwide. Being a leading cause of death and hospital admissions in many European countries including Spain, it accounts for enormous amounts of healthcare expenditures for its management. Clopidogrel is one of the oldest antiplatelet medications used as standard of care in ACS.MethodsIn this study, we performed an economic evaluation study to estimate whether a genome-guided clopidogrel treatment is cost-effective compared to conventional one in a large cohort of 243 individuals of Spanish origin suffering from ACS and treated with clopidogrel. Data were derived from the U-PGx PREPARE clinical trial. Effectiveness was measured as survival of individuals while study data on safety and efficacy, as well as on resource utilization associated with each adverse drug reaction were used to measure costs to treat these adverse drug reactions. A generalized linear regression model was used to estimate cost differences for both study groups.ResultsBased on our findings, PGx-guided treatment group is cost-effective. PGx-guided treatment demonstrated to have 50% less hospital admissions, reduced emergency visits and almost 13% less ADRs compared to the non-PGx approach with mean QALY 1.07 (95% CI, 1.04-1.10) versus 1.06 (95% CI, 1.03-1.09) for the control group, while life years for both groups were 1.24 (95% CI, 1.20-1.26) and 1.23 (95% CI, 1.19-1.26), respectively. The mean total cost of PGx-guided treatment was 50% less expensive than conventional therapy with clopidogrel [euro883 (95% UI, euro316-euro1582), compared to euro1,755 (95% UI, euro765-euro2949)].ConclusionThese findings suggest that PGx-guided clopidogrel treatment represents a cost-effective option for patients suffering from ACS in the Spanish healthcare setting.Personalised Therapeutic

Cost-sharing in the Greek Health Centres: The Administrative Personnel Aspects

Abstract Cost-sharing was introduced in Greece to supplement the state finance and social insurance funds and make patients cost-conscious. A questionnaire was distributed to 193 administrative personnel (response rate 96 per cent). The research was conducted from June 2011 to May 2012. Statistical analysis was performed using the Pearson x 2 test, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the t-test and the Mann-Whitney test at p&lt;0.05 level of significance. 92 per cent of the respondents said that patients complied with the payment of fees and 41.5 per cent that their visits to health centres have been reduced. 64 per cent of health centres do not employ only administrative personnel for the collection of medical fees but also nurses, physicians and technicians. At 85 per cent of health centres information technology systems are not used for the collection of medical fees. Although cost-sharing has contributed to the rational use of health centres&apos; services, it does not sufficiently corresponds to the expectations for effective provision of health care services