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.
Johnson
A P
AP
Canada Research Chair in Health Policy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. ana.johnson@queensu.ca
Abernathy
T
T
Howell
D
D
Brazil
K
K
Scott
S
S
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