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.

1–50 of 58 terms matching “Capacity”

A

Administrative FeasibilityImplementation Feasibility, Institutional Feasibility: An assessment of whether a policy can practically be implemented given available government administrative capacity and institutional expertise.

B

Bed AssignmentBed Allocation, Patient Placement: The process of allocating a specific hospital bed to an admitted patient based on their clinical needs and facility capacity.
Bed CapacityInpatient Capacity, Bed Availability: The total number of hospital or facility beds available to accommodate patients, a key measure of inpatient service delivery capacity.
Bed Management SystemBMS, Bed Tracking System: A technology or process tracking and coordinating hospital bed availability and assignment, intended to optimise patient flow and capacity use.
Best Interest StandardBest Interests Standard, Patient Wellbeing Standard: A decision-making principle for a surrogate acting for a patient lacking capacity, choosing the option that would most benefit their overall wellbeing.
Bounded Rationality ConceptBounded Rationality, Satisficing: A theory that decision-makers face limits on information, cognitive capacity, and time, and so settle for satisfactory rather than optimal choices.
Brain DrainHealth Worker Emigration, Skilled Migration: The emigration of highly trained healthcare workers from lower-resource to higher-income countries offering better pay, depleting origin countries' workforce capacity.

C

CapacityMaximum Throughput, Output Ceiling: The maximum level of output a health system, facility, or programme can sustainably deliver given its available staff, equipment, and infrastructure.
Capacity AssessmentMental Capacity Evaluation, Decisional Capacity Determination: A clinical evaluation of an individual's ability to understand information, appreciate consequences, and communicate a choice, to determine consent validity.
Capacity ManagementCapacity Optimisation, Demand-Capacity Balancing: The processes an organisation uses to plan for, monitor, and optimise available resources relative to anticipated patient demand.
Capacity PlanningCapacity Forecasting, Provision Planning: The estimation and alignment of usable service resources with expected workload, variation and access goals over a defined planning period.
Capacity UtilisationCapacity Utilization, Bed Utilisation Rate: A measure of the extent to which an organisation's available capacity, such as beds, is actually used relative to its maximum potential.
Catastrophic Expenditure MeasureCHE Measure, Catastrophic Spending Indicator: A quantitative indicator assessing whether household out-of-pocket healthcare spending exceeds a defined threshold share of income or consumption capacity.
Cognitive FunctioningCognitive Capacity, Cognitive Ability: A clinical outcome domain describing mental capacities, including memory, concentration, and problem-solving, typically assessed using standardised tests or questionnaires.
Cognitively Impaired ResearchResearch with Cognitive Impairment, Impaired Capacity Research: Research involving participants whose cognitive capacity may limit their ability to provide fully informed consent, requiring additional ethical safeguards.
CompetenceDecisional Competency, Legal Decision Authority: A legal determination of whether an individual has the legal authority to make their own decisions, distinct from clinical capacity assessment.
Consent CapacityDecision-Making Capacity, Mental Capacity: An individual's clinical ability to understand information, appreciate consequences, and communicate a choice, the foundational requirement for valid consent.

D

Decision Fatigue ConceptDecision Fatigue, Choice Depletion: A decline in decision quality following a long sequence of prior decisions, caused by depletion of self-regulatory capacity.
Diseconomies of ScaleDecreasing Returns to Scale, Scale Diseconomies: A situation in which average cost of production rises as output increases, often due to coordination difficulties or capacity constraints.

E

Emergency Care CoverageEmergency Access Coverage, Emergency Service Coverage: A measure of the extent to which a population has timely access to needed emergency medical services, reflecting response capacity.
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

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.
Foundational Sustainability EvaluationCore Sustainability Evaluation, Base Sustainability Evaluation: The core approach to assessing whether a programme's resource use can be maintained over time without compromising future capacity.
Functional IndependenceIndependent Functioning, Self-Care Capacity: An individual's capacity to perform daily activities without assistance from others, commonly assessed using standardised functional status instruments.
Functional LimitationFunctional Restriction, Capacity Limitation: A restriction in a person's ability to perform basic physical or mental actions, such as lifting or concentrating, per the WHO functioning framework.
Functional ResponseFunctional Improvement, Mobility Gain: A measure indicating improvement in a patient's functional capacity following treatment, such as increased mobility or improved daily activity performance.

G

Global Health SecurityGHS, Epidemic Preparedness Capacity: The collective capacity of the international community to prevent, detect, and respond to acute public health threats crossing national borders.

I

ImmunogenicityImmune Reactogenicity, Anti-Drug Antibody Response: The capacity of a biological therapy to provoke an immune response in the patient receiving it, potentially reducing effectiveness or causing adverse reactions.

L

Liquidity RatioCash Position Ratio, Short-Term Liquidity Measure: A liquidity ratio is a financial measure comparing an organisation’s readily available or current assets with its near-term obligations to assess its capacity to meet payments as they fall due.

M

Mature MinorCompetent Minor, Minor with Capacity: A legal doctrine letting a sufficiently mature adolescent below the age of majority consent to certain treatments independently of parental involvement.

O

Occupancy RateBed Occupancy Rate, Hospital Bed Occupancy Rate: Occupancy rate is the proportion of available service capacity used over a specified period, with the occupied and available units defined consistently for the setting.

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.
Presenteeism: Reduced productivity from an employee who is physically present at work but performing below their normal capacity due to illness or injury.

Q

Queuing Modelqueueing model, queue model, queuing theory model: A queuing model is a mathematical representation of how arrivals, service times, capacity, and service rules generate waiting, congestion, and throughput in a service system.

R

Recovery Model: A mental health treatment approach emphasising a person's own goals, strengths, and capacity for a meaningful life, rather than symptom elimination alone.
Role Functioning: A broader construct covering an individual's overall capacity to fulfil expected social and occupational roles, assessed as a composite scale.

S

Self-Efficacy: An individual's belief in their own capacity to successfully perform actions needed to manage a specific situation, such as a chronic condition.
Sensitivity to Change: The capacity of a health outcome measure to register a difference in health status when a real change has occurred in a patient's condition.
Social Functioning: A broader construct covering an individual's overall capacity for social engagement and relationships, often assessed as a composite scale.
Solvency: The financial capacity of an organisation, such as an insurer or hospital, to meet its long-term financial obligations as they come due.
Structure Quality Indicator: A measurable metric assessing the resources and organisational capacity available to a provider, such as staffing ratios or specialist equipment.
Substituted Judgment: A decision standard for a surrogate acting for a patient lacking capacity, choosing what the patient themselves would have chosen based on known values.
Surge Capacity Cost: The expense of maintaining a health system's ability to rapidly expand service capacity in response to a sudden demand increase.
Surrogate Decision-Maker: An individual authorised to make healthcare decisions on behalf of a patient lacking the capacity to make their own.
Sustainability: The capacity of a health system or programme to be maintained long term without depleting resources needed to meet future needs.
Sustainability EvaluationSustainability Assessment: An assessment of whether the resource use of a programme can be maintained over time without compromising future capacity.
System Resilience: A health system's capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a significant shock, such as a disease outbreak, while continuing essential services.
System Sustainability: The capacity of a health system's financing, workforce, and infrastructure to be maintained long term without unsustainable debt or disruptive cuts.

T

Task Shifting: The delegation of healthcare tasks from more highly trained workers to those with less training but adequate skill, maximising workforce capacity.
Time-Driven ABCTDABC: A simplified variant of activity-based costing using the cost per unit of time for resource capacity and the time an activity takes, rather than activity surveys.