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12. CLASSIFICATION OF RESOURCES FOR PRODUCTION OF HEALTH GOODS AND SERVICES
Principles and analytical use
For the large economic units, the costs side of this equation is indispensable. Without a clear description of the cost structure of the production units, a clear view on the balance of the institutions and the branch as a whole is impossible. Moreover financial information on production costs offer possibilities to use as a measurement of productivity and input efficiency. For policy decisions the productive efficiency can be an important issue for which also information on the cost components used in the branch are necessary. Information on the cost structure also makes it possible to have an insight in the losses incurred (or possibly also profits generated) by the production units in the health care branch.
Key Issues
Key in this area is the groupings of the variables and cost items to provide a global insight in the cost structure of a group of providers. One of the most important groups of variables to be included in the cost structure has to do with employment. This group not only has to include the wages and salaries but also social dues to be paid on earnings. As we are dealing with health care another group
of variables that could be important for providers of health deals with the medical goods used in the process of producing health services. Other types of resources that could be included deal with issues like consumption of fixed capital, interest payments for loans, food and other non-durable inputs.
However the main question here is whether or not there is possibility for identifying all type of resources within health care providers. It is known that providers of health produce not only health care but also some production outside the strict area of health care. The receipts for these producers outside the health care area may possibly be separated. However, attention has to be paid to the consequences for the cost structure. In the cost structure it is usually very difficult to have a unique relationship between the production and the inputs used. Observations cannot be limited to health care; as care related production costs should be taken into account. It is difficult to separate the production costs for health and non-health production.
As this unit is dealing predominantly with economic type of data it is obvious that definitions and calculation and classification methods have a strong link with the SNA/ESA (although they are not necessarily identical). The classification of resources for the production of health goods and services was not included in SHA 1.0.
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