Decision-Making and the Health Sector in Argentina CEA and the Use of Nitrous Oxide in Anesthesia

We analyze Argentina's demographic and socioeconomic data as the context for understanding its health sector. Health expenditures and the number of physicians are high in Argentina. Health coverage is extensive, but covers only about 50% of the per capita expenditures. The high expenditures in health do not correlate with improvements of indicators such as infant and general mortality. Evaluations of the way health care is provided are insufficient. Argentina's “medical-intensive” model of health is responsible for the expansion of the “small-ticket technology”, which accounts for a significant proportion of the increase in health expenditures. With this picture, we believe that health decision-makers could benefit from cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), because this technique stresses the relationship between expenditures and appropriately defined goals. As a demonstration project, we look at the way that technology is used in Argentina using CEA to assess anesthesia procedures. The results of our study show that increasing the use of N2O would save us $670,000 per year, and 10,300 years of life to surgical patients of all ages.