Financial evaluation of health programs A useful tool for decision taking

The health services constitute financial units, since they have a certain financial activity, with users, production coefficients, cost and result, that consists the better use of the existing resources, the benefit of better quality services and the offering treatment to more patients through the health programs. The financial evaluation of the health programs represents a useful tool for decision taking, which takes under consideration two parameters: the financial efficiency and the social justice a health program should carry. More often, it also uses some specific methods for evaluating the cost and the benefit of certain parallel programs, such as the analysis for cost minimization, cost efficiency, cost profit and cost use. Each method carries its own advantages and disadvantages which classify them as more manageable and efficient or as more rare and in special cases as applicable methods. The validity and credibility of the measurement indexes of all the analyses constitute criteria for a proper methodology and aim at the improvement of the quality of measuring the different aspects of the problem. All techniques of financial evaluation are useful despite the difficulties they indicate during their application, and the efforts for their improvement should be intensified in order to perfect them. The aim of present review was to help all the managers of health units and health policy, to evaluate the cost and the benefit, the advantages and disadvantages for anything innovator they want to import, and to follow a rational way of decision taking but with attention and increased judgment ability, because those techniques of analysis are nothing more than simply a supporting tool of the decision taking procedure.