Date and Time
September 29, 2010
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Availability
Open to the public
No RSVP required

Speaker
Karen Eggleston - Stanford University

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.

Although U.S. health care expenditures reached $2.3 trillion in 2008, representing 16.2 percent of GDP, methods for measuring productivity in this important service sector remain limited, especially for chronic disease. This paper develops a method of quality adjustment for total healthcare spending of patients living with one important chronic disease, diabetes mellitus. Applying a "cost-of-living" approach to detailed data on spending and quality of care for over 800 patients over 11 years, we find that the value of reduced mortality and avoided treatment spending, net of the increase in annual spending, was $9,094 for the average patient with one method and $23,627 using another method. These results suggest that the quality-adjusted cost of living associated with a prominent chronic disease has not increased over the past decade.