Basic Principles of Health Economics for Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Abstract

In the last decade, expenditure on health care in developing countries has enormously risen, thus making economic assessment of interventions an integral part of decision making in health services. Because of increasing demands on limited resources, health economics is exerting an influence on decision making at all levels of health care. Health economics seeks to facilitate decision making by offering an explicit decision making framework based on the principle of efficiency. All obstetricians and gynecologists will need to
have an understanding of its basic principles and how it can impact on clinical decision making. In this article, some of the basic principles of health economics and in particular economic evaluation were reviewed. It will allow obstetricians and gynecologists to understand better the common pitfall in economic evaluation, economic relations between their practice of medicine, the health-care sector, and the national economy.