Evaluating costs and benefits

Injury records should be consulted before and after an intervention process has been started in order to show the savings from fewer work-related injuries. Direct costs that should be calculated per injury include 

These direct costs may be the proverbial tip of the iceberg when considering the indirect or hidden costs of business disruptions caused by a loss-time injury. However, indirect costs can be difficult or impossible to calculate. You should, however, try to estimate such costs in these categories 

Overtime pay used to cover the work of an injured employee. 

Scheduling work tasks to cover for an injured employee. 

Additional administrative hassles, extra wages, training time, and inefficient work associated with temporary replacements. 

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There are several criteria for evaluating costs and benefits ... 

The objective of economic evaluations of health and social care interventions is to inform decision-makers about the relative costs and benefits to society of two or more methods of providing care. In the context of dementia these may be comparisons of different drug therapies (pharmacoeconomic... 

Once values have been assigned for the costs and benefits of each proposed risk-reduction modification, a variety of economic evaluation techniques may be used to choose the most attractive option. These techniques include net present value, discounted cash flow rate of return and cost-benefit ratio analyses. Most companies have a preferred method for evaluating project economics, which can be used with little or no modification. Chapter 8 of... 

The costs and benefits of both strategies could be evaluated more easily if models could be developed to simulate the spread of chemical/biological agents released under vari-... 

There is some controversy regarding which method to use in economic evaluation studies to estimate costs and benefits, which has led to attempts at standardization in the field of the economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals. 

If a government tightens up its drug approval policy it will have fewer type II errors but more type I errors, and vice versa. Therefore, an ideal drag approval policy should take into account both the costs and the benefits of a stricter or less strict policy when approving a pharmaceutical. Insofar as the costs and benefits stated above are important factors in the decision to approve or reject a drug, the role of economic evaluation is clear. 

Economic evaluation has shown7 that in order to maximize benefits in a context of budget restraint, it is necessary to calculate the updated costs and benefits of various possible investments. The resulting decision rule will depend on the nature of the decision ... 

This disjunctive between costs and benefits resulting from the regulation of the pharmaceutical approval process can be dealt with by means of economic evaluation. The various projects can be represented using a decision tree as shown in simplified form in Figure 8.1. 

This example is very simple and restrictive, but it is useful to illustrate the idea that economic evaluation can help to regulate the approval of pharmaceuticals. It also shows that one of the lessons to be leamt from applying the rules of economic evaluation is that the way dmg approval is regulated should change from one dmg to another, depending on the costs and benefits of each option. 

Economic analysis/valuation of specific functions or services provided by the natural system (i.e. the ecosystem) and of the (societal) costs and benefits of the measures proposed to restore these services, contributes to the transparency of the decisions. Concerning the system, a better definition of water services is needed in order to evaluate recovery costs of water uses and environmental costs. The economic analysis should also include a valuation of water and ecosystem services. For instance, the delivery of clean water by the ecosystem (e.g. through its filtering capacity or capacity to degrade contaminants) is one of these services. 

More generally, any public policy that affects use of pharmaceutical products in the short run should affect innovation in the longer run. As discussed above, countries differ in their relative emphasis on cost containment by the public sector versus reliance on market forces to achieve socially desirable outcomes. A method for achieving cost containment and static efficiency in some countries has been public evaluation of the costs and benefits of new technologies. 

The methods of cost-benefit analysis may be applied to evaluate the total costs and benefits of interventions that are being compared by analyzing their cost-benefit ratios or their net benefits. Furthermore, the additional or incremental cost of an intervention (i.e., the difference in cost between a new... 

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. 

The next important question is what are the anticipated costs and benefits applicable to a specific application The food processor unfamiliar with radiation technology may need help in evaluating this question, but... 

For food safety purposes the overriding aim is that food contamination should be reduced to the lowest practicable level, bearing in mind the potential costs and benefits involved. Since it is difficult to establish cause and effect relationships following long-term (chronic) exposure at low concentrations, it may be necessary to base action on prudence rather than on proven harm to health. However, if this approach is to maintain the confidence of both consumers and producers of food, a rational evaluation of all relevant information is required so that the balance between the risks and benefits of veterinary drugs can be assessed. Information on the incidence of potentially harmful drug residues is fundamental to this cost-benefit analysis so too is the consumption of the commodities involved (particularly for susceptible consumers or those consumers who eat more). Account must also be taken of the potential fall in food production if a drug is controlled or prohibited, and also the animal health and welfare implications that may result from the restriction of an animal medicine for which there may be no effective alternative. 

The modifying factor in the risk index represents any considerations of importance to waste classification other than those that are directly incorporated in the calculated risk from disposal and the specified allowable risk. The modifying factor can take into account, for example, the probability of occurrence of assumed exposure scenarios used in classifying waste, uncertainties in the assessment of risk from disposal and in the data required to evaluate the risk index, levels of naturally occurring hazardous substances in surface soil and their associated health risks to the public, and the costs and benefits of different means of waste disposal. The modifying factor is discussed further in Section 6.3.3. 

Cost-benefit analysis A quantitative evaluation and decision-making technique where comparisons are made between the costs of a proposed regulatory action on the use of a substance or chemical with the overall benefits to society of the proposed action often converting both the estimated costs and benefits into health and monetary units. 

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