An integrated economic framework to assess primary health care systems in rural and regional Australia: A case study of CQML Services

This paper focuses on developing an integrated economic framework to estimate the economic impacts of primary health care providers in Australia through a case study of the Central Queensland Medicare Local (CQML). This integrated economic framework is a combination of unit cost, regional input-output analysis, relative change and averting income loss analysis. CQML is a primary health care organisation servicing the central Queensland region in the State of Queensland, Australia. This study found that the total impact of CQML on Queensland’s economy in FY 2012-13 is expected to be $20.68 million, while $12.68 million is flow-on impacts. The CQML services also helped averting $158,190 to $66 million income loss of the patients, who had received CQML services. This integrated economic framework can be used to assess other primary health care systems at different geographic level and also can use for future resource allocation of primary health care services to rural and regional Australia.