Resource utilisation and costs of palliative cancer care in an interdisciplinary health care model.
This paper presents a detailed description of health care resource utilisation and costs of a pilot interdisciplinary health care model of palliative home care in Ontario, Canada. The descriptive evaluation entailed examining the use of services and costs of the pilot program: patient demographics, length of stay broken down by disposition (discharged, alive, death), access to services/resources, use of family physician and specialist services, and drug use. There were 434 patients included in the pilot program. Total costs were approximately CAN$2.4 million, and the cost per person amounted to approximately CAN$5586.33 with average length of stay equal to over 2 months (64.22 days). One may assume that length of stay would be influenced by the amount of service and support available. Future research might investigate whether in-home palliative home care is the most cost effective and suitable care setting for those patients requiring home care services for expected periods of time.
Canada Research Chair in Health Policy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. ana.johnson@queensu.ca
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D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006295:Health Resources / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000191:economics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000628:therapy*; D009864:Ontario; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000191:economics*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015397:Program Evaluation; D055815:Young Adult