. "4 Measuring Prices and Quantities of Medical Care: Improving Medical Care Price Indexes." Accounting for Health and Health Care: Approaches to Measuring the Sources and Costs of Their Improvement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2010.
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Accounting for Health and Health Care: Approaches to Measuring the Sources and Costs of their Improvement
with some experimental CPI work that has been carried out and presented at various times (see National Research Council, 2009, for a summary).
The state of data is such that it seems promising to encourage both approaches, even if resources are insufficient. Knowledge gained from the second approach will help the implementation of the first. And there is no reason to abandon the PPIs; they are likely to be the building blocks for a medical care account in the immediate future, if for no other reason than that there is nothing else. Success in building a medical care account will give medical economists what economists in other specialties have—a price/output data set that they can improve.
