Resource utilisation and costs of palliative cancer care in an interdisciplinary health care model

A.P. Johnson, T. Abernathy, D. Howell, K. Brazil, S. Scott

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)448-459
Number of pages12
JournalPalliative Medicine
Volume23
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01 Jan 2009

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