As Canadian health policy-makers struggle to contain costs while maintaining quality, patient education is promoted as making patients more effective producers of health and consumers of health care. Assessment of existing psychoeducational interventions has concentrated on knowledge enhancement, behaviour modification, and health status while economic outcomes have remained unexplored. Given that such programs are likely to be effective, but costly, economic appraisals are necessary to convince cost-conscious policy-makers. This manuscript describes a cost-effectiveness evaluation of the Arthritis Self-Management Program (ASMP) that I and my collaborators are conducting by randomizing participants to the ASMP as an adjunct to usual medical care versus usual medical care. Direct and indirect costs are evaluated through self-reporting of health services utilization and diminished productivity and effectiveness through a visual analogue scale and the SF-36. To influence health policy, the results must be disseminated to public health authorities, private insurers, and patient and health professional organizations, thereby encouraging funding, increasing awareness, and promoting participation.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether ostomy industry patent activity (PA) is associated with patient outcomes and healthcare costs.

Methods: Two groups of ostomy pouch users based on manufacturer PA (low or high) were compared in terms of ostomy-related wear patterns, adverse events, and healthcare expenditure. Using Swedish registry data, all patients with newly formed stomas were divided between each group and were followed during a 2-year period (2011–12). Propensity score matching and parametric duration analysis were used to compare outcomes between patients of similar characteristics such as sex, age, and ostomy surgery type.

Results: In both one- and two-piece systems, the high PA group had significantly lower monthly ostomy-related expenditure than the low PA group (one-piece: 197.47 EUR versus 233.34 EUR; two-piece: 164.00 EUR versus 278.98 EUR). Fewer pouch and skin wafer purchases per month were an important driver of cost differences. Both groups had similar likelihood of purchasing dermatological products for skin complications over time.

Conclusions: PA in the ostomy care industry was associated with reduced healthcare costs, but not necessarily with fewer skin complications. It suggests that there is a health economic benefit from products made by patent intensive companies which may differentiate them from generic comparators, but more research is needed to understand the impact of activities conducive to medical innovation on health outcomes.

Introduction The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic created a surge of patients with low-acuity influenza-like-illness (ILI) to hospital Emergency Departments (EDs). The development and results of a tiered surge plan to care for these patients at a Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) were studied.

Hypothesis/Problem By providing standard assessment and treatment algorithms within physically separate ILI Extension Areas, it was hypothesized that patient care could be streamlined and the quality of care maintained.

Methods Hospital administrators created the tiered H1N1 surge plan within the framework of the existing emergency operations plan (EOP). After the initial expansion of space and staff utilization within the existing PED footprint, ILI Extension Areas were opened and staffed by non-ED physicians and nursing to provide care rapidly for ILI patients after Registered Nurse (RN) screening. Volumes, length of stay (LOS), left without being seen (LWBS) rates, patient satisfaction, and costs were tracked and measured.

Results Significantly elevated volumes of patients were seen in the months of September and October of 2009 (42.0% and 32.7% increase over 2008). During this time, 612 patients were triaged to the ILI Extension Areas. The LOS was similar to that experienced in prior years. The LWBS rates in September (4.8%) and October (3.4%) were slightly elevated over the 2009 yearly average (3.2%), but remained lower than during a prior, high-volume month. Satisfaction, measured as patients’ “likelihood to recommend,” remained within the range observed during other parts of the year. Cost estimates indicate favorable financial performance for the institution.

Conclusion The tiered surge response plan represented a success in managing large volumes of low-acuity patients during an extended period of time. This design can be utilized effectively in the future during times of patient surge.

The aim of this study was to investigate the age differences in the rates and costs of broad categories of medical procedures (diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical) during the last year of life as well as hospitalization among the adult population of Quebec. The study is population-based and took into account 90 per cent of deaths occurring among the Quebec population (15 years and older) in 1991. The data were collected from the physician claim files of the Health Insurance Board. Costs were defined as physician payments for the procedures performed. The results showed that the rates of these procedures increase with age to reach a maximum in middle life and then decrease among the elderly. A similar trend was observed in the average cost of surgery and diagnostic procedures but the average cost of therapeutic procedures followed a constant decline with age. These data suggest that the oldest old do not seem to get more aggressive care at the end of life than younger decedents.

This paper is concerned with questions relating to demographic change (population growth and aging) and its implications for operating a publicly funded health care system in a Canadian setting. It provides an assessment of how prospective population changes alone would affect the share of health care costs in total national income in Canada over the next several decades; it provides also an analysis of how actual patterns of hospital service provision changed in Ontario over the last decade in response to budgetary restrictions in a period of rising demand for services. Finally, a case is made for viewing health care as an integrated system; a description is provided of a set of computer-based models that have been developed to facilitate analysis of the health care system, and illustrative projections are discussed.

Many new hip prostheses are now available for use in total hip replacement. The majority remain untested relative to standard prostheses; however, many new prostheses are substantially more costly. We examine how much more effective new prostheses must be, in terms of reducing the need for revision operations, in order to justify this increased cost.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to estimate the expected cost and clinical benefits associated with the use of drotrecogin alfa (activated) (Xigris; Eli Lilly and Company; Indianapolis, IN) in the French hospital setting.

Methods: The recombinant human activated PROtein C Worldwide Evaluation in Severe Sepsis (PROWESS) study results (1,271 patients with multiple organ failure) were adjusted to 9,948 hospital stays from a database of Parisian area intensive-care units (ICUs)—the CubRea (Intensive Care Database User Group) database. The analysis features a decision tree with a probabilistic sensitivity analysis.

Results: The cost per life year gained (LYG) of drotrecogin treatment for severe sepsis with multiple organ failure (European indication) was estimated to be $11,812. At the hospital level, the drug is expected to induce an additional cost of $7,545 per treated patient. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio ranges from $7,873 per LYG for patients receiving three organ supports during ICU stay to $17,704 per LYG for patients receiving less than two organ supports.

Conclusions: Drotrecogin alfa (activated) is cost-effective in the treatment of severe sepsis with multiple organ failure when added to best standard care. The cost-effectiveness of the drug increases with baseline disease severity, but it remains cost-effective for all patients when used in compliance with the European approved indication.

Objectives: To assess the cost-effectiveness of alternative initial strategies in the management of uninvestigated dyspepsia in adult patients presenting to a primary care physician in Canada.

Methods: Clinical decision-making was modeled based on outcomes data from the literature and expert opinion. Costs were obtained from official reimbursement lists, and a detailed microcosting analysis of a gastroscopy. Costs were analysed over a one-year period after initial presentation, including consideration of a single relapse of symptoms. The main outcome was a symptomatic cure. The seven management strategies based on different initial tests were endoscopy, double-contrast barium meal, empirical eradication therapy, empirical antisecretory treatment, urea breath test (UBT), laboratory serology, and sequential testing (laboratory serology followed, if Helicobacter pylori positive, by UBT).

Results: In patients under age 45, endoscopy, double-contrast barium meal, and sequential testing were not cost-effective approaches. UBT was the most effective and most costly strategy costing $8,238 per additional patient cure compared with laboratory serology. In patients over age 45, UBT was again the most effective and most costly strategy, but endoscopy was the most reliable in detecting gastric cancers. Clinical variables that impacted these findings were the probability of symptomatic relapse in patients with nonulcer dyspepsia (NUD) after successful versus failed H. pylori eradication, the probability of finding a duodenal ulcer (DU) in a young dyspeptic patient, the specificity of UBT, and the prevalence of H. pylori in patients with DU.

Conclusions: A “test-and-treat” approach was favored, with UBT being the most effective but most costly initial test in adult dyspeptics under age 45. The choice of the most cost-effective approach is dependent on the benefits of H. pylori eradication in patients with NUD. In patients over age 45, UBT is the most effective and most costly, but endoscopy results in the early detection of most gastric cancers.The authors are indebted to the other members of the UBTAN Group, including Drs. Phil Sherman, Alan Thomson, and Sander Veldhuyzen van Zanten. The authors also thank Paul Sinclair, Eileen Grace, and Lawrence Joseph for their much valued comments and opinions.AB and CAF are research scholars of the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec. This work was supported in part by an “at arms length” grant from AstraZeneca Canada.

Objectives: To develop and evaluate strategies for estimating hospitalization costs in multinational clinical trials.

Methods: Hospital cost estimates for eleven diagnoses were collected from twelve countries participating in a trial of therapies for congestive heart failure. Estimates were combined with U.S.-based diagnosis-related group weights to compute country-specific unit cost estimates for all reasons for hospitalization. Variations of hospital costing methods were developed. The unit cost method assigns a country-specific unit cost estimate to each hospitalization. The other methods adjust for length of stay using a daily cost (DC) estimate for each diagnosis, based on either the mean length of stay (DC-mean method) or the median length of stay (DC-median method) for each diagnosis in each country. Additional modifications were explored through adjustment of the distribution of daily costs incurred during a hospital stay.

Results: The mean cost for all hospitalizations was $10,242 (SD, 10,042) using the unit cost method, $10,242 (SD, 12,760) using the standard DC-mean method, and $13,967 (SD, 18,762) using the standard DC-median method. In comparisons of costs for all 5,486 hospitalizations incurred by a subset of 2,352 patients in the trial, the unit cost method provided 92% power to detect a $1,000 cost difference. The standard DC-mean method provided 76% power, and the standard DC-median method provided 44% power.

Conclusions: Hospital costing methods that adjust for differences in length of stay require a significantly larger sample to attain comparable statistical power as methods that assign unadjusted unit cost estimates to hospitalization events.

An acute pain service (APS) was set up to improve pain management after operation. We attempted to reduce the length of stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) of patients undergoing major surgery and to improve their homeostasis and rehabilitation using a multimodal approach (pain relief, stress reduction, early extubation). Patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) was a keystone of this approach. If PCEA was not applicable, patients received patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA) instead. Brachial plexus blockade (BPB) was used for surgery of the upper limbs. A computer based documentation system was used to help evaluate prospectively (a) the quality of analgesia, (b) adverse effects and risks of the special pain management techniques, and (c) cost-effectiveness.

Patients receiving PCEA (n = 5.602) received a patient-titrated continuous infusion into the epidural space of either bupivacaine 0.175% or ropivacaine 0.2%, with 1 μg sufentanil mL−1 added, followed by patient-controlled boluses of 2 mL (lockout time 20 min). For patients receiving PCIA (n = 634) an initial bolus of 7.5–15 mg piritramide was given, and the subsequent bolus was 2 mg (lockout time 10 min). A continuous infusion of bupivacaine 0.25% was administered to patients receiving BPB (n = 113). The dose was titrated to a dynamic visual analogue scale (VAS) scores < 40.

The mean treatment periods were: BPB = 4.33 days, PCEA = 5.6 days, PCIA = 5.0 days. In the case of PCEA, the quality of pain relief, vigilance and satisfaction were superior compared with the PCIA method, which resulted in greater sedation and nausea. Although personal supervision was higher for the PCEA-treated patients, cost analysis revealed final savings of €91 620 for the year 1998 obviating the need for an ICU stay totalling 433 days.

Provided that PCEA is part of a fast-track protocol employing early tracheal extubation and optimal perioperative management, the associated initial higher costs will be recouped by the benefits to patients of better pain relief after surgery and fewer days subsequently spent in the ITU.

This paper describes a method to construct a standardized health care resource use database. Billing and clinical data were analyzed for 916 patients who received liver transplantations at three medical centers over a 4-year period. Data were checked for completeness by assessing whether each patient's bill included charges covering specified dates and for specific services, and for accuracy by comparing a sample of bills to medical records. Detailed services were matched to a standardized service list from one of the centers, and a single price list was applied. For certain services, clinical data were used to estimate service use or, if a match was not possible, adjusted charges for the services were used. Twenty-three patients were eliminated from the database because of incomplete resource use data. There was very good correspondence between bills and medical records, except for blood products. Direct matches to the standardized service list accounted for 69.3% of services overall; 9.4% of services could not be matched to the standardized service list and were thus adjusted for center and/or time period. Clinical data were used to estimate resource use for blood products, operating room time, and medications; these estimations accounted for 21.3% of services overall.

A database can be constructed that allows comparison of standardized resource use and avoids biases due to accounting, geographic, or temporal factors. Clinical data are essential for the creation of such a database. The methods described are particularly useful in studies of the cost-effectiveness of medical technologies.