Abstract

LOPERA-MEDINA, María Mónica. Use of Health Services for Catastrophic or High-Cost Illnesses in Antioquia. Rev. Gerenc. Polit. Salud [online]. 2017, vol.16, n.32, pp.120-137. ISSN 1657-7027.  https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.rgps16-32.usse.

Catastrophic or high-cost illnesses (HCI) cause high morbidity and mortality, and demand permanent, complex, and expensive care. Objective: to characterize the use of health services due to high cost illnesses. Method: cross-sectional descriptive study. We analyzed information from individual service rendering records for eight HCIs, using CIE-10 coding. The use was analyzed according to sociodemographic variables and characteristics of the offer. Results: 16% of the service use was attributable to patients with HCI. This was more frequent in patients with chronic renal disease and precursors (ERC-P), orphan diseases, and epilepsy; women over 50 years of age and people in the contributory regime (with variations depending on the disease). Between 66 and 83 percent of the use occurred in private institutions and care through general medicine was prevailing, with little participation of other health areas. Conclusion: unacceptable differences of use were found between affiliation regimes and supply variables, related to privatization policies.

Keywords : healthcare utilization; catastrophic illness; hospitalization; ambulatory care; emergency medical services; health personnel.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )