Measuring the Effectiveness of Health Care Systems

Abstract

The author has an image of a health care system whose sole function is to ensure that the community it serves derives the maximum net benefit from its existence. The community it serves (its clients) comprises sick people and those who suffer pain, grief, anxiety, etc. because of that sickness, both now and contingently in the future. It does not include as such those whose livelihood depends upon providing the inputs which the health care system requires, except insofar as they are clients in the meaning given above. Moreover this community wishes its health care system to be run in a manner which reflects the values of the community, despite the fact that the health care system is so large and complex that a great deal of decentralization of resource allocation decisions is necessary. The basic problem is 'how can we measure the efficiency of such a system?' or, 'how can we tell whether that health care system is serving the community as well as it could?'