Effects of County Public Hospital Reform on Procurement Costs and Volume of Antibiotics: A Quasi-Natural Experiment in Hubei Province, China.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The overuse of antibiotics has become a major public health challenge worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries, including China. In 2009, the Chinese government launched a series of measures to de-incentivise over-prescription in public health facilities, including decoupling the link between facility income and the sale of medicines. OBJECTIVES:We evaluated the effects of these measures on procurement costs and the volume of antibiotics in county public hospitals. METHODS:The study was undertaken in the Hubei province of China, where 64 county public hospitals implemented the reform in sequence at three different stages. A quasi-natural experiment design was employed. We performed generalised linear regressions with a difference-in-differences approach using 22

SUBMITTER: Tang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6021466 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature