Economic evaluation direct costs

Consideration should be given to the input costs, that is, the costs of providing the service, as part of the economic evaluation. These costs should include direct and indirect costs if possible. Where charges are used, they should be appropriately labeled and interpreted as such. 

The health economic evaluation model and the COl model are closely related. The consumption of agents of production causes direct costs. Indirect costs are a monetary expression for the loss of economic wealth, that is, the impact of a health intervention is the reduction of indirect costs. The increase of health is reflected by the reduction of intangible costs. 

The main modes of economic evaluation have a common aim in their approach to cost measurement, which—if a societal perspective is adopted (the most appropriate in mental health contexts see below)—is to range widely across all direct and indirect costs (Table 1.1). Every resource impact and every opportunity cost are to be included. The types of evaluation differ with respect to their measurement of outcomes. In seeking to turn these economic evaluative principles into empirical studies a number of practical decisions must be taken. A fuller account of the following discussion is provided by, for example, Drummond et al (1997) and Gold et al (1996). 

To be useful to those concerned with choices in the allocation of health and social care resources, the data for economic evaluations need to be timely, relevant, credible and accurate (Davies, 1998). As a minimum, the costs associated with the interventions should be estimated from activity data, which quantify resources used, and price or unit cost data. Often evidence from well-controlled prospective trials with high internal validity is required to establish whether differences in economic end points are directly attributable to the interventions. However, the economic evaluations of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors estimated costs from retrospective analysis of available datasets Qonsson et al, 1999b), analysis of published literature (e.g. Stewart et al, 1998) and expert opinion (e.g. O Brien et al, 1999 Neumann et al, 1999). This means that it is not clear whether differences in costs were due to the anticholinesterase inhibitors or to other factors such as availability of services in different areas, the living situation of the patient, or disease severity. 

Another dimension of economic analysis of clinical practice illustrated by Fig. 1 is the evaluation of costs of a therapy. Economists consider three types of costs - direct, productivity, and intangible. 

In summary, economic analysis of medical technology or medical care evaluates a medical service by comparing its monetary cost with its monetary benefit (cost-benefit), by measuring its monetary cost in relation to its outcomes (cost-effectiveness), or simply by tabulating the costs involved (cost-identification). Direct costs are generated as services are provided. In addition, productivity costs should be considered, especially in determining the benefit of a service that decreases morbidity or mortality. Finally, the perspective of the study determines the costs and benefits that will be quantified in the analysis, and sensitivity analyses test the effects of changes in variable specifications for estimated measures on the results of the study. 

According to another important and promising technology, hydrocarbons are produced from methanol, which, in turn, is synthesized from synthesis gas. Called the methanol-to-gasoline process, it was practiced on a commercial scale and its practical feasibility was demonstrated. Alternative routes to eliminate the costly step of synthesis gas production may use direct methane conversion through intermediate monosubstituted methane derivatives. An economic evaluation of different methane transformation processes can be found in a 1993 review.1... 

All eleven references in this category relate directly to Section 6.1, the Economic Evaluation of this project. They contain capital costing methods, cost correlations, typical plant and equipment costs, and economic indicators to account for cost changes with time. 

The economic evaluation of medical care may occur from many perspectives. These perspectives, or viewpoints, will influence the costs and consequences identified, measured, and compared for a program or treatment alternative. An economic evaluation can be conducted from a single perspective or multiple perspectives. Common perspectives are those of the patient, provider, payer/insurer, and society. There are subtle differences between perspectives. A patient may be extremely concerned with his or her quality of life, level of pain, ability to see health care providers, or how much time is spent in the hospital or nursing home, in addition to the actual direct costs of health care. However, a payer may be interested only in the direct costs of health care to its organization. In fact, while a patient who is at the end of his or her life may be interested in extending life as long as possible, a payer may see this as an expensive prospect. 

In economic evaluations, there is a need to make assumptions about the variables in the analysis. For instance, assumptions that are made commonly include the incidence of adverse effects, the drug s efficacy (in clinical trials) and effectiveness (use in actual practice), and the costs of drugs or other direct medical costs. It is important to keep in mind that assumptions are simply predictions about what a researcher thinks might happen as a result of a program or intervention. To account for the variety of outcomes that may arise in any intervention, researchers should use a technique known as... 

The high capital investment cost of the Asahi process is due to the necessity for large absorbers, evaporators, crystallizers, dryers, rotary kiln crackers and screw decanter separators. The major operating and maintenance costs are electricity, fuel oil, steam and chemicals such as soda ash, EDTA and limestone. The requirement for consumption of large amounts of utilities is associated with the operation principle and design of the Asahi process. According to the economic evaluation, equipment required for N0X and SO2 absorption (such as packed-bed absorbers) accounts for 20% of total direct capital investment for treatment of dithionate ion (such as evaporator, crystallizer, dryer, and cracker) it accounts for about 40% and for treatment of nitrogen-sulfur compounds (such as screw decanter and cracker) it accounts for only 2%. 

Low sulfur fuel oils were prepared from a high volatile bituminous coal by hydrogenation under high temperatures and pressures. At a coal conversion of 80%, the ratio of oiU to-gas yields was about three, and 23% of the coal sulfur was contained in the oil. Sulfur content of the oil, however, remained the same at different coal conversion levels. The data obtained in the semi-continuous, dilute phase hydrogenation system showed that the whole oil can be directly used as a fuel oil where 1% sulfur is tolerated. Fuel oils containing 0,5 and 0,25% sulfur were produced by desulfurization of the whole oil, A preliminary economic evaluation indicated that low sulfur fuel oils can be produced from coal by hydrogenation at a manufacturing cost of about 5-6 per barrel. 

The perspective of society is the broadest of all perspectives because it is the only one that considers the benefit to society as a whole. Theoretically, all direct and indirect costs are included in an economic evaluation performed from a societal perspective. Costs from this perspective include patient morbidity and mortality and the overall costs of giving and receiving medical care. An evaluation from this perspective also would include aU the important consequences an individual could experience. In countries with nationalized medicine, society is the predominant perspective. 

Pharmaco-economic evaluations are new as a tool to control prices. In essence, regulators (or other purchasers) try to establish fair prices on the basis of complicated calculations, taking into account the costs of other treatments, the costs of disease for society and so on. The costs of a drug are thus set against its direct and indirect benefits, as compared with alternative drugs and treatments, and its possible disadvantages and risks. The essential question is how much the drug is worth to the community. 

Based upon the above considerations, it is concluded that the implementation of membrane reactors at an industrial level will be strongly related to further development, testing and optimization of larger scale membrane reactors under real operating conditions, in order to obtain effective performance and cost data to be directly used for techno-economic evaluations by industrial companies. 

The Hoar report determined the cost of corrosion for the industry sectors of the economy (2). The cost of corrosion for each industry sector was added together to arrive at the cost of corrosion for the entire UK economy. The report identified the sources for the cost of corrosion by sectors of the economy. It evaluated and summarized the direct expenditures (costs to owner/operator) in each economic sector. Indirect costs (costs for user) were not included in the studies. 

Discounted cash flow is one of the best ways to perform economic evaluations because it expresses a project s attractiveness as an equivalent interest rate and permits direct comparison to the cost of money. Discounted cash flow also recognizes the time value of money. See business. 

The principal points arising from this evaluation of costs and possible direct economic benefits of alternative control strategies are ... 

Wassermann Philosophy Wassermann Supply Chain (WSC) Value analysis of the supply chain Value accumulation curves Neutral-value direct costs What if scenarios Whipsaw effect Economical lot sizes Evaluation of economic efficiency... 

From an economic point of view, the criterion of the transport system performance evaluation is the direct cost of transportation (Mashayekh et al. 2011). Taking into account previously formulated markings criterion can be given as follows ... 

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