The name is absent

"Outcomes" is used to denote the change in what people value that comes from
the health service output and that, in turn, improves their welfare. How does
health care change consumer welfare? Here is where health care differs from
most other commodities. Health care is rarely enjoyed for its own sake.
Although it costs more to spend a week in a teaching hospital than in a five
star hotel, there are no competitions which give a hospital stay as a prize. This
is because most people, for the most part, seek health care when they are sick
not because they enjoy being health care consumers but because they wish to
be well. One’s health status is an important part of one’s overall wellbeing.
Health care consumption (or use) contributes to one’s welfare to the extent that
it improves health.

The simple model of health outcomes is illustrated in figure 2. Resources are
used as inputs in the production of health care; the outputs are valued not for
the enjoyment of their consumption but for their contribution to health. (We
return in section 5 to whether health care is the only input to health status and
in section 6 to whether health status changes are the only outcomes of health
care. The place of prevention and health promotion is also discussed in section
5).

This model explains the importance of seeing health care not in terms of the
number of people passing through the system: that is an output. The outcome
is what people value from health care use, which in turn increases their
welfare.

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