STUDY OF THE PERIOD OF PERMANENCE IN NATIONAL WAITING LISTS FOR SURGERY – APPLICATION OF THE NON-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS OF DURATION BY ARS

Abstract

The waiting lists for surgery are a problem related with the provision of medical care in most developed countries. For this reason is important to know and understand the reality that fits this problem in order to improve the process of implementation and management of waiting lists’ related measures. Being aware of this international problematic this paper aims to analyse the time spend by a Portuguese individual in a waiting list for surgery, by ARS, over a period of 19 years (from 1990 to 2009) using an administrative microeconomic dataset made available by SIGIC. The applied analysis uses a survival econometric methodology that includes the Kaplan-Meier and Nelson-Aalen non-parametric estimators. Through this methodology is possible to quantify the waiting times at different ARSs taking into account some socio-demographic characteristics and verify that the time spent on the waiting list is, in fact, distinct according the individuals’ ARS origin