Hospital Cost Function in a Non-Market Health Care System

Hospital Cost Flexibility in the Presence of Many Outputs: A Public-Private Comparison

“…To our knowledge, the relationship between flexibility and elasticity has not been formally worked out. 2 …”

“…Quasi-fixed inputs include equipment, building and all types of physicians. The introduction of physicians as quasi-fixed inputs is discussed in Jensen and Morrisey [12,13] and Bilodeau et al [2]. Change in hospital status and missing financial data left 1,300 usable observations for Québec and 6,369 for California.…”

“…The Québec hospital sector in the 1980s and early 1990s provides fertile grounds to test the theoretical model because of hospital closures, changes in status from short-term care to long-term or chronic care centers, and changes in the types of services required of the hospitals. 2 The reorganization of health services resulted in bottlenecks, increased waiting lists and delayed services. 3 In California, a growing nursing shortage, an aging population, and a growing government mandate stretched resources and were partly responsible for a doubling of costs during the 1980s and a continuing increasing trend in the 1990s.…”

“…2 The reorganization of health services resulted in bottlenecks, increased waiting lists and delayed services. 3 In California, a growing nursing shortage, an aging population, and a growing government mandate stretched resources and were partly responsible for a doubling of costs during the 1980s and a continuing increasing trend in the 1990s. 4…”

Examining cost variation across hospital departments–a two-stage multi-level approach using patient-level data

“…Competitive behaviour may be even less in evidence if health care is publicly funded or in situations where organisations enjoy a geographical or specialist monopoly of supply (Bilodeau et al, 2000). When competitive pressure is weak, there may be scope for better utilisation of resources and reductions in cost.…”