title: Benchmarking the cost efficiency of community care in Australian child and adolescent mental health services: implications for future benchmarking.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to benchmark the cost efficiency of community care across six child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) drawn from different Australian states.
  
  
  METHODS
  Organizational, contact and outcome data from the National Mental Health Benchmarking Project (NMHBP) data-sets were used to calculate cost per "treatment hour" and cost per episode for the six participating organizations. We also explored the relationship between intake severity as measured by the Health of the Nations Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA) and cost per episode.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average cost per treatment hour was $223, with cost differences across the six services ranging from a mean of $156 to $273 per treatment hour. The average cost per episode was $3349 (median $1577) and there were significant differences in the CAMHS organizational medians ranging from $388 to $7076 per episode. HoNOSCA scores explained at best 6% of the cost variance per episode.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These large cost differences indicate that community CAMHS have the potential to make substantial gains in cost efficiency through collaborative benchmarking. Benchmarking forums need considerable financial and business expertise for detailed comparison of business models for service provision.
authors.affiliation: Health Economics and Social Policy Unit, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Division of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia. gareth.furber@health.sa.gov.au
authors.forename: Gareth
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Furber
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brann
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Skene
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Allison
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001315:Australia; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005544:Forecasting; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data