Journal of School of Public Health and

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 Background and Aim: Global growth in the elderly population for both health care providers and families and also the community is an important challenge . Elders are the largest and fast factor for increasing hospital admissions in Society . Increasing costs of aging is the most concern to elders and their families. This study aimed to investigate the health team s approach about cost–effective alternatives for aging health services.

  This study is a qualitative research which was done through content analysis.

  18 people consisting of five faculty members , 6doctors , 3 nurses and 4health public health expert were participated. Samples were selected based on purposive sampling . Data were collected through interviews .

  Results: Four core themes derived from this study which included: 1- Emphasis on training for aging care ( including training doctors, nurses , health professionals , public health experts, elder sand their family caregivers). 2- Emphasis on proper implementation of primary health care for the elderly. 3- Emphasis on home care for elderly.4-attntion to mental health of elderly.

  Conclusion: It seems effectiveness of tree alternatives emphasis to training, home care and mental health for elderly are obvious and evident, so implementing and applying these suggestions would be helpful.

  But the second alternative emphasis on proper implementation of primary health care for the elderly must be performed based on a comprehensive needs assessment in elders population. Finally it is stressed that calculating and comparing actual costs of each alternative in elders caring must be measured through quantitative researches.

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Background and Aim: Iran's Health Sector Evolution Plan (HSEP) is one of the most important national health reform plans. HSEP has attracted many criticisms. An important criticism is about its service costs. This article reports the results of a project conducted to compare the costs of normal and caesarian section delivery before and after implementation of the HSEP.
Materials and Methods: This was an applied research project using hospital accounting records as data. A total of 120 delivery files (60 normal delivery and 60 caesarian section) were selected randomly from the accounting software of a large hospital in Isfahan before and after May, 2014.The data in each subject’s file ─ paid shares of the hospital, patient and insurance ─ but not hoteling, inpatient and other costs was extracted. The health service providers’ incomes based on the annual tariffs of the services and changes in payments for each service for gynecologist and anesthesiologists were calculated. Data were analyzed using the excel software.
Results: The costs of normal delivery and caesarian section after implementation of the National HSEP had increased by 193% and 226%, respectively. In addition, of the treating physicians (gynecologists and anesthesiologists) had also increased by 257% for the normal and by 130% for caesarian section. Changes in the sums of money involved in service delivery indicates shifting of parts of the costs from the patients to the health subsidy and insurance systems.
Conclusion: The health System Evolution has not lead to real reductions in the out-of-pocket money paid by the patients. Higher cost of services will imply the need for better cost management. Increased costs of services will be to the benefit of neither patients nor the health system. This would mean that in designing and implementation of the Health Sector Evolution Plan economic aspects should be taken into consideration more carefully.