Prioritization in the Health Care Sector

This project investigates prioritization in the Norwegian health care sector. The objective is to see how actual prioritization is affected by regulation and finance systems of the specialist health care sector, and to establish systems for surveillance o f prioritization of patients over geographical areas and according to their priorities as measured by medical needs. We will furthermore use the derived categorization of patients according to medical needs to investigate the sensitivity of capitation for mulas for the regional health authorities. This is of particular importance, since medically based patient priorities may capture importan morbidity factors. The project makes use of medical guidelines developed at hospitals and by government agencies. Me dical conditions of different priorities will be coded according to ICD10. Data will come from the Norwegian Patient Register and similar registers in Scotland. We will also add further information about hospital specific factors, as well as properties of patients and their area of residence (municipality). We will perform a comparative cross country analysis of Norway and Scotland. The project includes a PHD stipend and senior research input.