Audit risk and rent extraction: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Brazil

We report results from a randomized policy experiment designed to test whether increasedaudit risk deters rent extraction in local public procurement and service delivery in Brazil. Ourestimates suggest that temporarily increasing annual audit risk by about 20 percentage pointsreduced the proportion of irregular local procurement processes by about 17 percentage points.This reduction was driven entirely by irregularities involving mismanagement or corruption. Incontrast, we find no evidence that increased audit risk affected the quality of publicly providedpreventive and primary health care services -measured based on user satisfaction surveys- orcompliance with national regulations of the conditional cash transfer program "Bolsa Família".

Outpatient Quick Diagnosis Units for the evaluation of suspected severe diseases: an observational, descriptive study

Background: Hospitals in countries with public health systems have recently adopted organizational changes to improve efficiency and resource allocation, and reducing inappropriate hospitalizations has been established as an important goal. AIMS: Our goal was to describe the functioning of a Quick Diagnosis Unit in a Spanish public university hospital after evaluating 1,000 consecutive patients. We also aimed to ascertain the degree of satisfaction among Quick Diagnosis Unit patients and the costs of the model compared to conventional hospitalization practices. DESIGN: Observational, descriptive study. METHODS: Our sample comprised 1,000 patients evaluated between November 2008 and January 2010 in the Quick Diagnosis Unit of a tertiary university public hospital in Barcelona. Included patients were those who had potentially severe diseases and would normally require hospital admission for diagnosis but whose general condition allowed outpatient treatment. We analyzed several variables, including time to diagnosis, final diagnoses and hospitalizations avoided, and we also investigated the mean cost (as compared to conventional hospitalization) and the patients' satisfaction. RESULTS: In 88% of cases, the reasons for consultation were anemia, anorexia-cachexia syndrome, febrile syndrome, adenopathies, abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea and lung abnormalities. The most frequent diagnoses were cancer (18.8%; mainly colon cancer and lymphoma) and Iron-deficiency anemia (18%). The mean time to diagnosis was 9.2 days (range 1 to 19 days). An estimated 12.5 admissions/day in a one-year period (in the internal medicine department) were avoided. In a subgroup analysis, the mean cost per process (admission-discharge) for a conventional hospitalization was 3,416.13 Euros, while it was 735.65 Euros in the Quick Diagnosis Unit. Patients expressed a high degree of satisfaction with Quick Diagnosis Unit care. CONCLUSIONS: Quick Diagnosis Units represent a useful and cost-saving model for the diagnostic study of patients with potentially severe diseases. Future randomized study designs involving comparisons between controls and intervention groups would help elucidate the usefulness of Quick Diagnosis Units as an alternative to conventional hospitalization.

Evaluation of a pharmacist intervention on patients initiating pharmacological treatment for depression: a randomized controlled superiority trial

Major depression is associated with high burden, disability and costs. Non-adherence limits the effectiveness of antidepressants. Community pharmacists (CP) are in a privileged position to help patients cope with antidepressant treatment. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of a CP intervention on primary care patients who had initiated antidepressant treatment. Newly diagnosed primary care patients were randomised to usual care (UC) (92) or pharmacist intervention (87). Patients were followed up at 6 months and evaluated three times (Baseline, and at 3 and 6 months). Outcome measurements included clinical severity of depression (PHQ-9), health-related quality of life (HRQOL) (Euroqol-5D) and satisfaction with pharmacy care. Adherence was continuously registered from the computerised pharmacy records. Non-adherence was defined as refilling less than 80% of doses or having a medication-free gap of more than 1 month. Patients in the intervention group were more likely to remain adherent at 3 and 6 months follow-up but the difference was not statistically significant. Patients in the intervention group showed greater statistically significant improvement in HRQOL compared with UC patients both in the main analysis and PP analyses. No statistically significant differences were observed in clinical symptoms or satisfaction with the pharmacy service. The results of our study indicate that a brief intervention in community pharmacies does not improve depressed patients' adherence or clinical symptoms. This intervention helped patients to improve their HRQOL, which is an overall measure of patient status.

Job Satisfaction of Spanish University Graduates

This paper investigates the determinants of job satisfaction of university graduates in Spain. We base our analysis on Locke"s discrepancy theory [Locke (1969)] and decompose subjective evaluation of job characteristics into surplus and deficit levels. We also study the importance of overeducation and over-skilling on job satisfaction. We use REFLEX data, a survey of university graduates. We conclude that job satisfaction is mostly determined by the subjective evaluation of intrinsic job characteristics, with an asymmetric impact of surpluses and deficits. Over-skilling is much more important than over-education in explaining the job satisfaction of university graduates, although the latter is also significant.