CHP/PCOR faculty and affiliates presented a variety of research at the 5th World Congress of Health Economics, held July 10-13 in Barcelona, Spain and sponsored by the International Health Economics Association (IHEA). The conference -- one of the largest and most prominent such gatherings in health economics -- attracted more than 1,800 attendees this year. At the close of the event, CHP/PCOR hosted a dinner meeting at which the centers' international collaborators gathered to discuss current and future research directions.

The CHP/PCOR researchers who attended and presented at the IHEA conference are Laurence Baker, M. Kate Bundorf, Alan Garber, Kathryn McDonald, Ciaran Phibbs, Ming Wu and Wei Yu. The research topics they presented included Beijing's health insurance reform efforts; hospital financial performance and patient safety; the impact of insurance coverage on infertility treatments; and cost-effectiveness analysis and health coverage decisions (see presentation titles and co-authors, below). A panel discussion on this last topic -- for which Alan Garber served as a panelist -- was chaired by Stirling Bryan, MSc, PhD, a professor of health economics at the University of Birmingham (UK), who will be coming to CHP/PCOR this fall as a visiting scholar.

Taking advantage of the presence of so many CHP/PCOR international collaborators who had traveled to Spain for the IHEA conference, CHP/PCOR hosted a dinner meeting of these collaborators on July 13. The meeting, held at a downtown Barcelona restaurant, was attended by nearly 30 participants in the centers' Global Healthcare Productivity Project (GHP), the Global Analysis of Technological Change in Healthcare Project (TECH), and the China-U.S. Health and Aging Research Fellowship Program, as well as former CHP/PCOR visiting scholars. The attendees represented 13 countries including Argentina, China, Finland, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea and Spain.

Led by CHP/PCOR executive director Kathryn M. McDonald and director Alan M. Garber, the meeting gave the centers' international collaborators an opportunity to meet face-to-face to exchange ideas and to network across fields and geographic regions. The attendees discussed new and ongoing research projects dealing with three key areas of interest to CHP/PCOR: global healthcare productivity; determinants and consequences of technology change in healthcare; and demography and economics questions relevant to health and aging. They also discussed possible sources of funding support for international research collaborations.

"Interacting in person is particularly important for international and interdisciplinary collaborations," McDonald said. "At this meeting we generated new research ideas that capitalize on the expertise and data sources available to this unique group of investigators." The potential research topics discussed dealt with pharmaceutical pricing, ways to manage rising healthcare costs, and studies involving hospital data, she added.

The following presentations were given by CHP/PCOR faculty, affiliates and international collaborators at the IHEA conference:

"Private and Public Cross-Subsidization: Financing Beijing's Health Insurance Reform." Presented by Wei Yu; co-authors Ming Wu, Ying Xin and Huihui Wang.

"The Effects of Insurance Coverage on Infertility Treatments and Outcomes." Presented by Kate Bundorf; co-authors Laurence Baker and Melinda Henne.

"The uninsured: risk, income, and the affordability of coverage." Presented by Kate Bundorf; co-author Mark Pauly.

"The Relationship Between Physician Practice Size Treatment Patterns and Outcomes." Presented by Laurence Baker; co-authors Jonathan Ketcham and Donna MacIsaac.

"Hospital Financial Performance and Patient Safety." Presented by Laurence Baker; co-authors Jeffrey Geppert, Sara Singer and Kelly Dunham.

"Diffusion of Neonatal Intensive Care and Black-White Newborn Outcomes Differences." Presented by Laurence Baker; co-authors Christopher Afendulis, Amitabh Chandra, Elena Fuentes-Afflick and Ciaran Phibbs.

"Cost-effectiveness and evidence evaluation as criteria for coverage policy." Presented by Alan Garber.

"Private and Public Cross-Subsidization: Financing Beijing's Health Insurance Reform." Presented by Wei Yu; co-authors Ming Wu, Ying Xin and Huihui Wang.

"Healthcare Financing for the Elderly: Strategies for Nations with Regional Heterogeneity in Financing Capacity." Panel session with participants Ming Wu and Shanlian Hu.

"Inequality in in-patient care delivery-The case of access to high-technology AMI treatments." Presented by Marie-Christine Closon on behalf of the TECH group, Julian Perelman, Amir Shmueli, Louise Pilote, Kathryn McDonald and Olga Saynina.

"The Diffusion of Medical Technology and the Role of Regulation." Presented by Mickael Bech; co-author Terkel Christiansen.

"Regional differences in the outcome from the treatment of AMI patients." Presented by Unto Häkkinen; co-author Gunnar Rosenqvist.

"Cost indices and productivity measurement in AMI." Presented by Vincenzo Atella; co-authors Franco Peracchi, Domenico De Palo, Claudio Rossetti.