Workload: 40 hours per week
Faculty: Dr. Raymond Wagener, Hiroshi Yamabana
Assessments: Presentations, assignments, written exam

Content and objectives
The objective of the course is to study quantitative tools used in order to analyze health care systems are financed. In general, this means that the complex reality of national health systems and health care delivery systems has to be represented by quantitative models allowing to describe how the financing of the health system works and to analyze the mechanisms explaining the tendencies observed. Building on such an understanding of the system, models may be constructed to forecast the future financial development of the system and the future consequences of the reforms undertaken today.

Thus the objectives of the course will be to:

• Study the object of the modeling effort, the health system in its financial

• effort through an introduction to the health economics;

• Present the quantitative aspects by discussing statistical indicators and

• above all the construction of health accounts;

• Discuss health policy questions and what quantitative information and

• work is needed to reach well informed decisions on these questions;

• Construct health care finance models, and

• Understand the use and limitations of the model

Nearly all policy decisions regarding national health systems must be based on the quantitative aspects of the options available, and the impact of any decisions taken. The latter is also a critical input to reform. Hence, the ability to quantitatively describe health systems as well as to create a range of hypothetical, plausible scenarios, based on new directions for those systems, is increasingly important throughout the world. The methods presented in this course allow students to construct a clear and complete description of how a health care system is financed. It furthermore illustrates how demographic, economic and social factors affect the financial ability of the system in the short and medium term. In addition, students will be trained to forecast the impact of current decisions on health expenditures in the future.

Literature

• Cichon, M., Newbrander, W., Yamabana, H., Weber, A., Normand, C., Dror, D. & Preker, A. (1999). Modelling in health care finance a compendium of quantitative techniques for health care financing. Geneva: International Labour Office

• International Labour Office (2002). The ILO Population Projection Model – A Technical Guide. Geneva: International Labour Office

• Normand, C. & Weber, A. (1994). Social health insurance - A Guidebook for planning. Geneva: World Health Organization & International Labour Organization