EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Are services delivered by community health centers more cost‐effective? Evidence from urban China

Hongli Jiang, Wen Chen, Kangning Bi and Xiaohua Ying

Health Economics, 2009, vol. 18, issue S2, S107-S117

Abstract: China has introduced a system of community health centers (CHCs) to provide primary care. To test whether services provided by such centers are more cost‐effective than treatment at local higher‐level hospitals, the study compared health outcomes and expenditures for patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus in three cities. We hypothesized that treating patients in stable condition at CHCs is less costly than providing treatment in higher‐level hospitals with no differences in health outcomes. Results indicate that daily drug and other medical expenditures were consistently equal or lower for patients seeking treatment in CHCs than for those treated in hospitals. Patients also saved time by visiting CHCs. Health outcomes, measured as mean arterial pressure for hypertension and plasma glucose for diabetes, were similar for patients seeking treatment in CHCs and hospitals in most cases. Results suggest that CHCs are more cost‐effective than hospitals in treating chronic diseases. Findings may also indicate that those patients seeking care at hospitals have more serious – and therefore more expensive and time‐consuming – conditions. Further empirical research is needed to clarify these results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1517

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:s2:p:s107-s117

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-05-05
Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:s2:p:s107-s117