HERC - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki

General description

The Health Economics Resource Center (HERC) contains information used to determine the cost of staff time, and useful for estimating the cost of new interventions. It also assists users in determining the cost of VA care, assessing cost-effectiveness, and evaluating the efficiency of VA programs and providers. Data include labor type (identified by Budget Object Code), fiscal year, total labor costs, workload (hours), and hourly labor costs from each source.

HERC Average Cost assists researchers in approximating the cost of all VA healthcare encounters (inpatient and outpatient care) by assessing cost-effectiveness and evaluating the efficiency of VA programs and providers.

Variable categories

• Inpatient Medical/Surgical Care
• Long-Term Care
• Inpatient Non Medical/Surgical Care
• Outpatient Pharmacy
• Outpatient Visits

Limitations

• Used mainly for VA users, and external generalizability of results to the general population is uncertain.
• The HERC Average Cost data is limited in precision since all encounters sharing the same characteristics receive the same average cost estimate.
• Also, three factors influence the accuracy of the average cost estimate:

• The accuracy of the aggregate cost data.
• The accuracy of the encounter level utilization data.
• The accuracy of the relative value weights.

Related publications

• Using average cost methods to estimate encounter-level costs for medical-surgical stays in the VA
• Average cost of VA rehabilitation, mental health, and long-term hospital stays
• Estimating the costs of VA ambulatory care
• Trends in diagnosis of painful neck and back conditions, 2002 to 2011
• One-Year Outcomes of Community-Acquired and Health-Care-Associated Pneumonia in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System

Data access

Access on VINCI is managed on the VA Intranet, through DART (Data Access Request Tracker).

To access HERC data, visit HERC Average Cost data