What makes the hospitalisation system more efficient? An application of the decomposition method to Hong Kong morbidity data

Yip, Paul S F; Lee, Carmen K M; Chow, Chun-Bong; Lo, William T L

Authority. [4] The public healthcare sector currently accounts for over 90% of total secondary and tertiary care, while its subsidy from the Government has reached 95%. The public only needs to pay HK$100 (US$13) per day to receive inpatient services, while the average operating cost is about HK$3,000 (US$350) a day. Healthcare expenditure has been increasing, accounting for 25% of Government expenditures. [5] With an ageing population of more than 13% aged 65 or over and an estimated increase to 28% by 2039, the whole sustainability of the public health system has been called into question and the Government has been actively trying to generate alternative resources to ensure the quality and survival of the public hospital system. 5 visit, is offsetting the corresponding increase in population size, patient population, and the number of visits per patient in a given year. In the present study, we use the decomposition method to examine the impact of the mean duration on the other two factors: total number of patients per 1,000 people of the general population, and the mean number of visits per year in assessing its impact on the total number of hospitalization days.