OPTIMIZING EXPENSES IN HOSPITAL UNITS

Health systems are continuously subjected to challenges of different natures, from the ageing of the population, namely the increase in the number of associated diseases, high costs of financing new technologies to the emergence of pandemics, with a major impact on budgets allocated for health. In 2020, 48% of the funds allocated for health in Romania were spent in hospital units, 25% by retailers and other providers of medical goods, and 14% of the amounts were allocated to outpatient medical service providers. According to the OECD, up to 20% of health expenditure contributes little or no to improving the health status of patients, including unnecessary admissions or average outdated hospitalizations, sets of unnecessary or duplicated analyzes, overstated drug treatments to the detriment of generics, continuous hospitalizations for conditions that can be treated in outpatient settings, etc. Considering the fact that the budget allocated to health in Romania is among the smallest at the level of the Member States of the European Union, it is very important that the allocated amounts are spent as efficiently as possible. This paper carries out a qualitative and quantitative research on the use of funds allocated for health, for the period 2012 - 2022, in six hospital units in the west of the country, in order to verify the level of efficiency of the use of these funds. The results of the research show us the existence of avoidable expenses, which do not bring benefits regarding the health of the patients but put pressure on the budgets of the hospital units. By highlighting these expenses, there are the necessary premises for optimizing the expenses, the amounts thus saved can be used to increase the quality of the medical act and the development necessary to ensure the patients treatments.