Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 June 2004
38 Mr. English asked the Minister for Health and Children his views on research carried out by the ESRI on activity levels in 20 hospitals here between 1998 and 2002, inclusive; and if he will tackle the discrepancies in performance and value for money between some public hospitals. [18453/04]
View answerCase mix is an internationally accepted management system for the monitoring and evaluation of health services. The health strategy states "...the most developed system for assessing comparative efficiency and for creating incentives for good performance is case mix." At present the programme operates in 34 hospitals nationally.
Arising from the national case mix programme my Department reviews performance across the public hospitals generally. It also discusses the results with hospital management to encourage performance and value for money improvements.
Case mix is used as part of the budgetary process to base funding on measured costs and activity rather than on less objective systems of resource allocation and to fund hospitals based on their mix of cases. It is also used in a broad way when considering investment options with the acute hospital sector, bed capacity and the national treatment purchase fund.
Following a recent review of the case mix system, the national programme will be significantly enhanced and expanded. The review will be applied to all acute hospital encounters and all acute and sub-acute hospitals by the end of the decade. It is intended that at least 50% of acute hospital funding will be based on peer group related case mix performance by 2009. This is a major development in the system. It will greatly enhance resource allocation, evaluation of investment and value for money aspects in the health sector.
