Is a US analysis of cost-effectiveness in interventional cardiology relevant to a centrally funded health care system?

摘要

Early studies of costs from the United States were simple comparisons of hospital charges-for example, between coronary bypass and coronary angioplasty. This gen- erous approach seemed far removed from our centrally funded system in the UK, and we tended to look jealously across the water where costs could be transferred to willing payers on an individual patient basis. Not so now; first, Cohen and Sukin have done much to clarify the costs, detailing each item of resource consumption and possible cost- effectiveness of the devices and activities in interventional cardiology. Second, the health care systems have changed in both countries.