Unbiased Indicators of Hospitals Occupancy during the COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Jimenez Fernandez, Eduardo
  2. Fernádez Motilva, María Dolores 1
  3. Ferrer SapenA, Antonia 2
  4. Sánchez Pérez, Enrique A.
  1. 1 Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Granada
  2. 2 Dpto. de Comunicación Audiovisual, Documentación e Historia del Arte. Universitat Politècnica de València
Journal:
Estudios de economía aplicada

ISSN: 1133-3197,  1697-5731

Year of publication: 2022

Issue Title: Systematic Reviews and Bibliometric-Analyses in Applied Economics Literature

Volume: 40

Issue: 2

Type: Article

DOI: 10.25115/EEA.V40I2.6351 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR

More publications in: Estudios de economía aplicada

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

Most public health agencies in regions or countries report the  SARS-COV2 disease situation on a daily basis based on cases confirmed  by various diagnostic tests. They also report other indicators such as deaths, admissions and intensive care admissions as supplementary  information. However, due to the lack of uniform criteria and the  adoption in each hospital of ad hoc measures to deal with the increase in cases, epidemiologic curves based on confirmed infections do not allow comparison between regions or countries analyzed. In this article we present a simple composite indicator that measures health occupancy using a fixed reference system. This indicator makes it  possible to know and compare the state of health systems, without the  deviation in the information produced by the adoption of individual measures that aim to adapt hospitals to the daily evolution of the epidemic.

Bibliographic References

  • Braveman, P. (2006). Health disparities and health equity: Concepts and Measurement. Annu. Rev. Public Health; 27, 67-94.
  • Casal, F. R. (December 21, 2020). Datos oficiales de COVID-19 en España.
  • Chua, F., Armstrong-James, D., Desai, S.R., Barnett, J., Kouranos, V., Min Kon, O., Rama Vancheeswaran, J. R., et al. (2020). Monitoring the COVID-19 epidemic in the context of widespread local transmission. The Lancet 8(5), 440-442.
  • Consejo Interterritorial. Sistema Nacional de Salud. (October 2, 2020) Actuaciones Coordinada para el control de la transmisión de la COVID-19.
  • Costa-Font, J. & Rico, A. (2006). Devolution and the Interregional Inequalities in Health and Healthcare in Spain. Regional Studies. 40(8), 875-887.
  • Cronin, C. J. & Evans, W. N. (2021) Excess mortality from COVID and non-COVID causes in minority populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118 (39) e2101386118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2101386118 .
  • Instituto Nacional de Estadísitica. (December 23, 2020) Fallecidos por cáncer en España.
  • Instituto Nacional de Estadísitica (December 2, 2021). Estimación del número de defunciones semanales (EDeS) durante el brote de covid-19.
  • https://www.ine.es/experimental/defunciones/experimental_defunciones.htm. Instituto de Salud Carlos III. (2020). Estudio ENE-COVID: Cuarta Ronda estudio nacional de Sero-Epidemiología de la infección por SARS-COV-2 en España. Ministry of Health. https://www.mscbs.gob.es/gabinetePrensa/notaPrensa/pdf/15.12151220163348113.pdf
  • Karlinsky, A. & Kobak, D. (2021). Tracking excess mortality across countries during the COVID-19 pandemic with the World Mortality Dataset. eLife ;10, e69336 doi: 10.7554/eLife.69336
  • Kenyon, C. (2020). COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Associated with Incidence- A Population-Level Analysis of 19 Spanish Autonomous Communities. Biology; 9(6), 128. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9060128
  • Lopez-Valcarcel, B.G. & Barber, P. (2017). Economic Crisis, Austerity Policies, Health and Fairness: Lessons learned in Spain. Appl Health Econ Health Policy 15, 13–21. DOI 10.1007/s40258-016-0263-0
  • Lisboa, M., Tavaziva, G., Abidi, S. K., Campbell J. R., Haraoui L. P, Johnston, J. C. et al. (2020) Diagnostic accuracy of serological tests for covid-19: systematic review and meta-analysis. Bulletin of medical journal; 370 :m2516
  • Mateo-Urdiales, A., Spila Alegiani, S., Fabiani, M., Pezzotti,, P., Filia, A., Massari, M., Riccardo, F., Tallon, M., et al. (2021) Risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent hospital admission and death at different time intervals since first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administration, Italy, 27 December 2020 to mid-April 2021. Eurosurveillance, 26, 2100507 (2021), https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.25.2100507
  • Ministerio de Sanidad, Consumo y Bienestar. (November 27, 2021) Hospitales, Camas en funcionamiento y Puestos de Hospital de Día (PHD) del Sistema Nacional de Salud (SNS) según comunidad autónoma.
  • Onder, G., Rezza, G. & Brusaferro S. (2020) Case-Fatality Rate and Characteristics of Patients Dying in Relation to COVID-19 in Italy. JAMA. May 12;323(18):1775-1776. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.4683. Erratum in: JAMA. 2020 Apr 28;323(16):1619. PMID: 32203977.
  • Patel R., Babady E., Theel, E.S., Storch G.A.,Pinsky B.A., St. George, K., Smith, T.C. & Bertuzzi, S. (2020) Report from the American Society for Microbiology COVID-19 International. Value of diagnostic testing for SARS–CoV-2/COVID-19. mBio 11:e00722-20
  • Perone G. (2021). The determinants of COVID-19 case fatality rate (CFR) in the Italian regions and provinces: An analysis of environmental, demographic, and healthcare factors. Sci Total Environ. Feb 10;755(Pt 1):142523
  • Surkova, E., Nikolayevskyy, V. & Drobniewski, F. (2020) False-positive COVID-19 results: hidden problems and costs. The Lancet, 8(12): 1167-1168.
  • Red Nacional de Vigilancia Epidemiológica, (December 1, 2021). COVID-19. https://cnecovid.isciii.es/covid19/#documentaci%C3%B3n-y-datos
  • Red Española de Registros de Cáncer. (1 de diciembre de 2021)
  • Teixeira da Silva, J. A. & Tsigaris, P. (2020) Policy determinants of COVID-19 pandemic–induced fatality rates across nations, Public Health, 187, 140-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2020.08.008.
Data source: Dialnet