R. Leidl, P. Potthoff, and D. Schwefel Health is a most vital resource represented in the degree of our well-being and our ability to conduct active and satisfactory lives. Acute and chronic illnesses diminish such well-being and abilities and may require resources for medical or nursing care. The improvement in health status, a major objective of health policy, requires the measurement of the severity of diseases and their consequences as essential elements of information. In application, the measurement approaches are gaining in relevance as they become more feasible and as more experience is gathered about their implementation and utilization. The feasibility of these new information tools is supported by developments in data processing technologies that permit broadly based empirical applications. Wider applications lead to improvements in the management use of this information. At the European level, better indicator systems of diseases and their various aspects are facing an increasing demand for patient-based health and health system comparisons and analyses. The measurement of health status and its implications can comprise a number of dimensions: various concepts of health and disease, types of diseases, methodological approaches of measurement, purposes of application and states of implementation.

From the early days of its recognized occurrence, AIDS has been per ceived as posing tremendous threats, burdens and challenges to human beings. Individuals, societies and, in a global point of view, mankind are affected by the effects of the HN infection, the nature and extent of which is still unclear in many ways. In the beginning only biomedical and epidemiological analyses of the problem were the top research priori ties, the former laden with great hopes that it may soon be possible to stop the spread of the disease and to overcome its physical impact. Yet it soon became clear that AIDS would be something to be reckoned and coped with on a long-term basis, making a thorough investigation of its impact absolutely mandatory. AIDS has serious economic consequences. Taken seriously, they can not be confined to predictions of costs intended to support the AIDS issue in the struggle for resources. Besides cost calculations - a method ologically tricky and wide-ranging topic in itself -and their application to cost-effectiveness and other analyses, economic issues include identify ing and assessing patterns of care, analyzing problems of financing, exploring impacts on markets other than health care, and modelling scenarios for future developments and strategies. At present, the eco nomic aspects of AIDS still constitute a very recent topic in European health economics and health systems research. Many projects are just about to start, and there must be a better exchange of information between research groups.

Das Buch befaAt sich mit der fallbezogenen Spezifikation der Krankenhausversorgung. Behandelt werden Theorie, Methoden und AnsAtze von Produktdefinitionen aus dem Krankenhaus-, Pflege- und dem ambulanten Bereich sowie deren Bewertung und Interpretation. FA1/4r amerikanische Krankenhauspatienten werden die Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs) empirisch analysiert, mit anderen Klassifikationen verglichen und die Wirkung einer EinfA1/4hrung zur Krankenhausfinanzierung untersucht. FA1/4r Krankenhauspatienten aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wird mit mehreren DatensAtzen ein regressionsanalytisches Verfahren, der "Lineare Verweildauer-Index" entwickelt. Der Einsatz zur Finanzierung und zum Wirtschaftlichkeitsvergleich wird gezeigt. Ergebnisse einer Befragung von KrankenhausArzten, die deutliche HandlungsspielrAume bei der Verweildauer angeben, unterstreichen die Relevanz des fallstandardisierten Verweildauer-Vergleichs.