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An innovative model is combined with an integer programming model to analyse the cost effectiveness of semi-automated early defibrillators (AEDs) for the Austrian Red Cross. The findings indicate that AED programmes produced cost-effectiveness ratios of less than 55,000 Euro per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) over a wide range of assumptions regarding uncertain parameters.

We performed a radial, input-oriented variable returns-to-scale data envelopment analysis to benchmark 52 rescue departments of the Austrian Red Cross from a single province. Three inputs (working hours of employed personnel/non-employed personnel and number of vehicles) and two output variables (duration-weighted number of two service transportation categories) were selected. First, we assessed the service production process of the Red Cross to obtain an insight into the level of performance, and performance differences among the rescue departments. We found that the average technical efficiency of the rescue departments amounted to almost 88%. The theoretically derived potentials of input reductions for inefficient rescue departments were, among others, restricted by several settings, which were analysed in the second step. Here, several socio-economic, environmental and institutional factors were investigated using a second stage regression analysis based on fractional regression models to find out whether they impacted on the performance of the rescue departments. We found a negative relationship between wintry weather conditions, measured as the number of ice days, and performance, while we identified a positive impact of the number of people aged 64+ and the number of hospital beds in the catchment area on Red Cross performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Byline: Marion S. Rauner, Kurt Heidenberger The main objective of this study was to investigate selected attributes of strategic technology management in hospitals with regard to hospital ownership and purpose, status, and medical specialisation. Therefore, we aimed at disclosing the scope as well as the current and potential future role of strategic technology management for Vienna hospitals compared to US findings. In particular, we explored issues of terminology, allocation of financial resources to medical technology, investment plans, and decision making from a policy perspective. Our paper thus contributes an Austrian perspective to a necessary international comparison of these topics.

Occupational injuries are a great burden on health care costs world- wide. We present the first detailed decision support system that investigates the total direct and indirect costs of individual occupational injury claims for a given year covering Austrian costs for a general injury insurance company (AUVA), employers, and the economy. We calculate total lifetime costs for each individual claim, discounted by 3%, amounting to 496, 306, and 552 million euros for the AUVA, employers, and the economy, respectively. Using Classification and Regression Trees (CART), the detailed cost calculation provided by our the decision support system is used to cluster all patients into risk groups according to several criteria such as age, gender, and job type with similar resource needs, e.g., lifetime AUVA costs. We analyze cost-effectiveness thresholds for prevention program costs per injury for certain risk groups. Our tools help the AUVA investigate occupational injuries in detail and allocate its prevention budgets optimally, and also politically argue that its budget should not be reduced for the purpose of subsidizing other social security companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A preface for the December 2005 issue of the "Central European Journal of Operations Research" is presented.