Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Efficiency
Keywords:
Efficacy, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Health managementAbstract
Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Efficiency are widely used term in health care management. Efficacy means getting things done (is it working?), effectiveness means doing the proper things (is it actually working well?), and efficiency means doing things right (is it working within the most economical way?). It’s helpful to consider them during this particular order. First, confirm the answer can actually achieve the specified result, albeit that efficacy requires very specific conditions. Then, test your solution during a real-world environment. Finally, if the answer is effective, find out ways to form it more economical more efficient. This article describes the meaning and usage of these three terminologies in context of health care setup.
References
Mackenzie R, Dixon AK. Measuring the effects of imaging: an evaluative framework. Clin Radiol. 1995 Aug;50(8):513-8. doi: 10.1016/s0009-9260(05)83184-8. PMID: 7656516.
Salkeld G, Davey P, Arnolda G (1995) A critical review of health-related economic evaluations in Australia: Implications for health policy. Health Policy 31: 111-125.
Angus Stevenson (2010) Oxford Dictionary of English (3 ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, ISBN: 978-0-19-957112-3.
Drucker PF (1966) The Effective Executive. Harper & Row, New York.
Cochrane AL (1972) Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, London.
Anglemyer A, Horvath HT, Bero L (2014) Healthcare outcomes assessed with observational study designs compared with those assessed in randomized trials. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014: MR000034.
Benson K, Hartz AJ (2000) A Comparison of Observational Studies and Randomized, Controlled Trials. N Engl J Med 342: 1878-1886.
Roland M, Torgerson DJ (1998) What are pragmatic trials? BMJ 316: 285.
Treweek S, Zwarenstein M (2009) Making trials matter: Pragmatic and explanatory trials and the problem of applicability. Trials 10: 37.
Revicki DA, Frank L (1999) Pharmacoeconomic evaluation in the real world. Efectiveness versus efficay studies. Pharmacoeconomics 15: 423-434.
Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, Sinclair JC, Hayward R, Cook DJ, et al. (1995) Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: IX. A method for grading health care recommendations. JAMA 274: 1800-1804.
Sackett DL, Rosenberg WMC, Gary JAM, Haynes RB, Richardson WS (1996) Evidence based medicine: What is it and what it isn't. BMJ 312: 71-72.
Harbour R, Miller J (2001) A new system for grading recommendations in evidence-based guidelines. BMJ 323: 334-336.
Palmer S, Torgerson DJ (1999) Economics notes: Definitions of efficiency. BMJ 318: 1136.
Kernick DP (2003) Introduction to health economics for the medical practitioner. Postgrad Med J 79: 147-150.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors retain the copyright of their article, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.
