What can we learn from a cross-country comparison of the costs of child delivery?
基于九个欧洲国家的数据，分析正常分娩住院成本，发现医疗劳动力价格和技能组合是主要决定因素，并指出通过专业化和任务转移可提高效率，对制定医疗购买力平价有参考价值。
This study provides a comparative analysis of the costs of normal delivery in hospital in nine European countries using the data collected as part of the HealthBASKET project. The results show that both the level of input (medical labour) prices and the skill mix used for delivery are major determinants of total delivery costs. At the hospital level, there seems to be room for greater efficiency through specialisation and task shifting from doctors to midwives and nurses. More generally, the results of our study suggest that the costs of delivery in hospital are not independent of supplementary home care provided outside of hospitals. The cost information and analysis in this study may also be useful for developing healthcare-specific purchasing power parities (PPPs) that allow for healthcare expenditures to be compared across countries.