Dictionary
The Dictionary provides concise definitions of health economics terms, arranged alphabetically for quick reference. Use it to understand unfamiliar terminology or confirm the meaning of a specific term.
E
- Economic BurdenCost Burden, Societal Cost Burden
- The total cost imposed on a health system, individuals, or society by a specific disease, injury, or risk factor.
- Emergency PolicyEmergency Preparedness Policy, Health Crisis Policy
- Government or health system policy governing preparedness for and response to public health emergencies, including stockpiling and surge capacity planning.
F
- Financial Protection IndexFPI, Protection Performance Index
- A composite measure combining multiple financial hardship indicators into a single statistic tracking a health system's protection performance over time.
- Financing IncidenceFinancing Burden Distribution, Payment Incidence Analysis
- An analysis of how a health system's financing burden, whether taxation or out-of-pocket payments, is distributed across population subgroups.
- Fiscal SustainabilityBudgetary Sustainability, Long-Run Fiscal Viability
- The capacity of a health system's financing arrangements to be maintained long term without unsustainable debt or disruptive future cuts.
G
- General ListingUnrestricted Formulary Listing, Standard Listing
- The inclusion of a treatment within a health system's standard, unrestricted formulary, without special authorisation or subgroup limitation.
- Global PerspectiveGlobal Viewpoint, Multi-Country Perspective
- An analytic viewpoint considering costs and outcomes across multiple countries or the world as a whole, rather than one national health system.
- Governance BlockLeadership and Governance, Governance Function
- A core health system building block encompassing policy, regulation, and oversight mechanisms guiding and coordinating the system's overall functioning.
H
- Health Capital FormationHealth Infrastructure Investment, Capital Health Spending
- Investment in a health system's physical and human infrastructure, such as hospital construction or workforce training, distinct from ongoing operational spending.
- Health Information SystemHIS, Health IT System
- The organised collection of components and procedures used to gather, process, store, and communicate health-related information within a health system.
- Health Workforce BlockWorkforce Building Block, Human Resources for Health
- A core health system building block encompassing the availability, distribution, and skill mix of healthcare workers needed to deliver services.
- Horizon ScanningEmerging Technology Identification, Technology Foresight
- A systematic process identifying, tracking, and prioritising emerging technologies likely to significantly affect a health system, before market entry.
I
- Institutional PerspectiveHospital Perspective, Provider Institution Perspective
- An analytic viewpoint including only costs and outcomes relevant to a single institution, such as a hospital, rather than the broader health system.
- Integrated CareCare Integration, Seamless Care Delivery
- A care delivery model coordinating services across different providers, settings, and health system levels for a more seamless patient experience.
L
- Listing DecisionPositive Listing, Reimbursement Listing
- A formal determination on whether a treatment will be included on a health system's approved formulary, and under what conditions.
- Local PerspectiveSub-National Perspective, Local Health Authority Perspective
- An analytic viewpoint considering costs and outcomes relevant to a specific region or local health authority, rather than a national health system.
M
- Medical Products BlockMedical Products Pillar, Medicines and Technologies Block
- A core health system building block encompassing access to essential medicines, vaccines, and technologies of assured quality, safety, and efficacy.
- Multi-PayerPlural Payer System, Multiple-Payer Model
- A health system financed through multiple distinct insurance payers, such as several private insurers alongside public programmes, unlike a single-payer system.
N
- National HTA AgencyNational HTA Body, HTA Agency
- A government or government-mandated organisation conducting assessment to inform coverage, pricing, and reimbursement decisions within a country's health system.
- National PerspectiveCountry-Level Perspective, National-Level Perspective
- An analytic viewpoint considering costs and outcomes relevant to an entire country's health system, rather than a single institution, region, or payer.
- National Schedule of Reference CostsNHS Reference Costs, National Cost Collection
- A standardised set of unit costs for healthcare services, published to enable consistent costing across an entire health system.
O
- Opportunity Cost Assessment
- The process of estimating what health benefits or other value are displaced when a health system commits resources to a new intervention.
- Organisational EvidenceOrganizational Evidence
- Information addressing how an assessment decision might affect broader operational aspects of a health system, such as staffing or infrastructure needs.
- Overutilization
- The use of healthcare services beyond what is clinically necessary or beneficial, an inefficient use of health system resources.
P
- Pandemic Preparedness Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to advance investments improving a health system's capacity to detect and respond to a future outbreak.
- Performance MeasurementPerformance Assessment, Performance Monitoring
- The systematic measurement of how well a provider or health system delivers care against defined standards, using indicators that can be tracked over time.
- Primary Care
- Basic, first-contact healthcare typically provided by general practitioners, serving as the entry point into a health system and ongoing coordination.
- Primary Care Cost
- The expense of healthcare services delivered by general practitioners and other primary care providers, a health system's typical first point of contact.
- Primary Care Model
- An organisational approach emphasising accessible, community-based, first-contact care as the health system's foundation, with primary care coordinating overall needs.
- Primary Healthcare
- An approach to health system organisation emphasising accessible, community-based, first-contact care as the foundation of the entire system.
- Priority Setting Method
- A systematic approach to deciding how to allocate limited health system resources across competing programmes or services.
- Private System
- A health system model in which financing and delivery are predominantly provided through private sector organisations, for-profit or non-profit.
- Public System
- A health system model in which financing and delivery are predominantly provided through government-owned institutions, funded through taxation or mandatory insurance.
R
- Rationing
- The deliberate limiting of access to healthcare due to resource scarcity, occurring in some form within every health system.
- Rationing Approach
- The specific method a health system uses to allocate limited resources among competing needs, explicit and transparent or more implicit.
- Reference Cost
- A standardised unit cost for a specific healthcare service, published by a health system to promote consistency in costing across providers.
- Regional Perspective
- An analytic viewpoint considering costs and outcomes relevant to a defined geographic region within a country, rather than the health system as a whole.
- Resource Allocation
- The process of distributing limited health system resources across competing uses to maximise health outcomes or other policy objectives.
- Revenue Collection
- The process by which a health system raises financial resources, through mechanisms such as general taxation, social insurance, and private premiums.
S
- Screening Policy
- Government or health system policy governing which population screening programmes will be offered and funded, informed by health economic evaluation.
- Service Coverage
- The proportion of a target population that receives a specific needed healthcare service, a building block of overall health system performance.
- Service Delivery Block
- A core health system building block encompassing how interventions are organised and delivered to reach the population that needs them.
- Skill Mix
- The specific combination and balance of different healthcare professional types, such as physicians and nurses, employed within a health system.
- Stewardship
- A core health system building block encompassing overarching responsibility for policy formulation, regulation, and accountability across the system's actors.
- Supplementary Benefits
- Additional healthcare services covered beyond a health system's core essential benefits package, often through supplementary insurance or extra cost.
- Surge Capacity Cost
- The expense of maintaining a health system's ability to rapidly expand service capacity in response to a sudden demand increase.
- Sustainability
- The capacity of a health system or programme to be maintained long term without depleting resources needed to meet future needs.
- System Access
- A healthcare access dimension concerning overall ease of navigating and obtaining needed services within a health system, combining multiple specific barriers.
- System Coverage
- A general term for the extent to which a health system's services reach and benefit its target population, covering multiple coverage dimensions.
- System Effectiveness
- A measure of the degree to which a health system achieves its goal of improving population health outcomes.