AnEmpirical Study on the Measurement of Transaction Costs in Health Management Alliances
Objective To measure the transaction costs of the health management alliance with the clue of the re-ferral treatment of patients with hypertension and diabetes.Methods Based on the Williamson-Zhang Wuchang analy-sis paradigm,a transaction cost measurement matrix of health management alliance was established.Through the typical sampling method,the health management alliance of County N in Shandong Province was selected as a re-search example to carry out empirical research.Results In 2023,the total transaction costs of the sampled health management alliance reached to 6 726 700.00 yuan,and the average transaction cost per referral patient was 3 846 yuan.The leading hospital accounted for 79.45%of the transaction cost,followed by the CDC.Meanwhile,busi-ness coordination cost accounted for 47.18%of the total transaction cost,and the average transaction cost per refer patient with hypertension or diabetes was 700.90 yuan.Conclusion The total transaction costs of the health manage-ment alliance was large,and it was mainly borne by the leading hospital.Patients also need to bear considerable transaction costs.The countermeasures included improving the service integration mechanism,establishing economi-cal system supply path,and coordinating actions between social health insurance system and health care system.
health management allianceintegrated delivery systemtransaction cost