title: Health service efficiency: appraising the appraisers--a critical review of economic appraisal in practice.
abstract: This paper provides a critical appraisal of the application of economic evaluative techniques to problems of health service efficiency. Focusing largely on the British literature, it selects some recurring issues, comments on them from a theoretical point of view, and illustrates them with examples of good and bad practice.
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004526:Efficiency; D006296:Health Services / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States