Assessment of Cancer Care Costs in Disease-Specific Cancer Care Pathways

In view of an efficient use of the Italian National Health Service-funded healthcare resources, a novel data-processing strategy combining information from multiple sources was developed in a regional cancer network of northern Italy. The goal was to calculate the annual overall cost of care pathway...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

In view of an efficient use of the Italian National Health Service-funded healthcare resources, a novel data-processing strategy combining information from multiple sources was developed in a regional cancer network of northern Italy. The goal was to calculate the annual overall cost of care pathways of six disease groups in 10,486 patients. The evaluation was conceived as a population-based cost description from the perspective of the Italian National Health Service. Costs occurred during a defined time period for a cross-section of patients at varying stages of their disease were measured. The total cancer care cost was €81,170,121 (11.1% of total local health expenditure), with a cost per patient of €7741.17 and a cost per capita of €204.62. Surgical, inpatient and day-hospital medical admissions, radiotherapy, drugs, outpatient care, emergency admissions, and home and hospice care accounted for 21.2%, 24.1%, 6.2%, 28.2%, 14.0%, 0.9%, and 5.4% of the total cost, respectively. The highest cost items included drugs (cost per capita, €22.95; 11.2% of total cost) and medical admissions (€14.51; 7.1%) for blood cancer, and surgical (€14.56; 7.1%) and medical admissions (€13.60; 6.6%) for gastrointestinal cancer. The information extracted allows multidisciplinary cancer care teams to be more aware of the costs of their clinical decisions. Ausführliche Beschreibung