Patient care ‘must be cost effective’

HEALTHCARE planners will need to look beyond just managing drugs and supply budgets to achieve efficiencies as pressure on healthcare funding increases, a health economic expert said.

“Although high-calibre patient-centred care is the goal of healthcare providers, it is critical that this patient care is cost effective,” said Professor Paul Trueman.

The professor of health economics at Brunel University in London was the lead speaker at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s (RCSI) annual nursing and midwifery conference in Dublin yesterday.