Abstract

ARNAUDO, María-Florencia; LAGO, Fernando-Pablo  and  BANDONI, José-Alberto. Decision-Making in the Healthcare System: Interdisciplinary Contributions from Health Economics and Process Systems Engineering. Ens. Econ. [online]. 2020, vol.30, n.56, pp.136-150. ISSN 0121-117X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/ede.v30n56.78681.

Health system administrators must constantly make decisions regarding its design and planning, its management, and the evaluation of its operations, among others. In this context, it is necessary to have a comprehensive vision of the problems faced by health systems, which can be achieved by combining the methods and tools provided by Health Economics and Systems Engineering. The aim of this work is to reflect on the possibilities of achieving improvements in health systems from the development of interdisciplinary work between these sciences. For this, the objectives of Health Economics and Process Systems Engineering as scientific disciplines are presented, and some applications of this approach, which allow the design of tools that collaborate in assisting decision-making for the allocation of resources in the health sector, are reviewed. It is concluded that engineering mathematical modeling can be used to advise decision makers, providing useful information on optimal strategies, taking into account the political, budgetary, technical and equity restrictions proposed by health economists.

JEL: A12; I10; I19; C02.

Keywords : decision making; health systems; Health Economics; Systems Engineering.

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