Sustainability Through Efficiency

Abstract

AbstractAn activity is considered efficient when relatively little input is needed to achieve its intended results. In health and social care, this means using the minimum possible human, material and financial resources to bring about a certain health benefit or a certain improvement to quality of life. Economists also refer to this approach specifically as productive efficiency: how do we “produce” better health at the lowest cost, in the broad sense of the word? Or in other words, how do we avoid “wastage” in the delivery of care? This contrasts with allocative efficiency, which is about whether people and other resources are deployed in the right place in the light of our society’s wishes and goals. That is the core theme of the third part of this report (Chaps. 7, 8, and 9), where we look at choices and prioritization in the Dutch health and social care system. Our focus in this chapter is productive efficiency, and in particular the potential for its improvement in terms of resource allocation or cost-effectiveness. In the next chapter we turn our attention to the human dimension of efficiency and home in on the issue of staffing sustainability.