Jon Karnon

Jon Karnon is a Professor of Health Economics at the University of Adelaide. He has been undertaking applied economic evaluations of health care technologies and services for over 20 years, including the analysis of Australian health systems data to assess clinical practice variation and health system performance. Jon is President of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand and has sat on the Economic Sub-Committee of the Pharmaceuticals Benefits Advisory Committee since 2009.

Comparing hospital performance with respect to costs, outcomes, and processes of care
Variation in the quality of health care may be observed between service providers, but also between patients, according to presenting characteristics or the day or time of treatment. Quality can be measured using process and outcome indicators, but it is increasingly important to look at the costs of care as well. We have developed and applied methods for analysing routinely collected hospital and mortality data to compare costs and process and outcome indicators to identify clinical areas in which potentially important variation appears to be present. Potentially important variation was observed in the management of chest pain in the ED, across hospitals, between patients, and according to the day and time of presentation.