Health Economics

Goal: The course is designed to enable students apply economic principles in the management of health resources. Course Objectives: On completion of this course the students should be able to:- Understand economic implication of government policies and reforms Acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for utilizing available resources in meeting the health care needs of clients. Participate effectively in budgeting activities in educational and health institutions. Contents: Unit I: Demography and Social Welfare  Demography and Social stratification  Health and economic indices including Morbidity and mortality rates/ratios, GDP, etc  Poverty and Social exclusion; impact on health and economic indices  Social Welfare programmes such as Poverty alleviation programmes, public health education programmes and National Health Insurance Scheme  Role of nurses in the National Health Insurance Scheme Unit II: Health and Economic Demand Concepts of scarcity, demand and supply Choice and opportunity cost Internal and external migration of health workers Availability and distribution of health and nursing services Problems of production – human and material resources Unit III: Health Sector Reforms MDGs and involvement of national health system Public Private Partnership initiative Outsourcing, Privatization and Commercialization of health care services Unit IV: Budgeting Procedures Political Economy of Health Costing of health and nursing services Budgeting procedure - Bottom-up approach Planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation Entrepreneurship in Nursing services