Demand in New Zealand Hospitals: Expect the Unexpected?

Nan Jiang () and Gail Pacheco

No 2014-04, Working Papers from Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics

Abstract: The New Zealand health care sector stands out relative to other OECD countries, with relatively low per-capita health expenditure and a public dominant health system. Efficient allocation of resources is therefore paramount. This paper creates a predictive model for patient volume using the national database of hospital admissions. Contrasting predicted with actual demand, we construct indicators of volatility in unexpected demand (at the hospital and disease chapter level) and assess their role with regard to patient outcomes. There is consistent evidence that when actual exceeds predicted, patients stay in hospital longer, and are more likely to have an acute readmission.

Keywords: hospital demand; emergency readmission; length of hospital stay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aut.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/ ... omics-WP-2014-04.pdf (application/pdf)

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:aut:wpaper:201404

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Gail Pacheco ().