What can we learn from a cross-country comparison of the costs of child delivery?

This study provides a comparative analysis of the costs of normal delivery in hospital in nine European countries using the data collected as part of the HealthBASKET project. The results show that both the level of input (medical labour) prices and the skill mix used for delivery are major determinants of total delivery costs. At the hospital level, there seems to be room for greater efficiency through specialisation and task shifting from doctors to midwives and nurses. More generally, the results of our study suggest that the costs of delivery in hospital are not independent of supplementary home care provided outside of hospitals. The cost information and analysis in this study may also be useful for developing healthcare-specific purchasing power parities (PPPs) that allow for healthcare expenditures to be compared across countries. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.