Table 1.

Study design

		Year of data	Location	Treatment sites	Patient episodes	Patients	Costs included	Measurement of staff time	Valuation of resource use
GROUP A
1	Cromwell et al.	2001–2003	USA	40	834	Medicare	Direct care staff, ancillary indirect/overhead	Self-reported logs, direct observation, 7 days	CMI multiplied with average costs
2	Gaines et al.	2003	New Zealand	8	2848	No restriction	medical/health staff, ancillary, indirect/overhead	Self-reported summaries (nurses), 6 month	Top-down allocation
3	Hirdes et al.	1999–2000	Canada	34	1998	No restriction	Clinical staff excl. physicians	Self-reported logs, 1 day/7 days	Avg. wages
4	Buckingham et al.	1996	Australia	22	6554	No restriction	Direct care staff, indirect/overhead	Self-reported logs, 3 months	Top-down allocation
5	Yamauchi	1993	Japan	17	2284	No restriction	Physicians, nurses, therapists	Self-reported logs, 1 day/7 days	Avg. wages
6	Fries et al.	Unclear	USA	51	890	Long-staying	Nurses, physicians, psychologists, other therapists	Self-reported logs, 1 day/7 days	Avg. wages
GROUP B
7	Iglesias & Alonso Villa	2003	Spain	1	163	Long-staying	Nurses, aides	Self-reported logs, 7 days	None
8	Autio	Unclear	USA	1	42	No restriction	Nurses, counselors	Obs. patient sampling, rand. 10 min interval, ten shifts	None

Ancillary = e.g. radiology, pharmacy, pathology; CMI = case-mix index; obs.: = observational; rand. = randomised.