A cost measurement study for a tele-oncology practice

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Oncology
• Health Economics

Background:

• Peripheral hospitals face challenges in delivering consistent oncology services.
• Evaluating different service delivery models is crucial for optimizing healthcare resource allocation.
• Conventional, outreach, and telemedicine clinics represent distinct approaches to providing specialized care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the costs of delivering oncology services through three distinct models: conventional, outreach, and telemedicine clinics.
• To analyze the per-patient costs associated with each service delivery method in a peripheral hospital setting.
• To identify the most economically viable method for providing oncology care to remote populations.

Main Methods:

• A one-year study was conducted to measure the costs of providing oncology services.
• Three models were evaluated: conventional clinics (on-site oncologist), outreach clinics (visiting oncologist), and telemedicine clinics (remote consultation via video-link).
• Patient volumes and average costs per patient were recorded for each model.

Main Results:

• Conventional clinics served 2400 patients with an average cost of $149 per patient.
• Outreach clinics served 81 patients with an average cost of $897 per patient.
• Telemedicine clinics served 103 patients with an average cost of $812 per patient.

Conclusions:

• At the studied patient volumes, conventional clinics demonstrated significantly lower per-patient costs than outreach or telemedicine models.
• The high per-patient costs in outreach and telemedicine models may be influenced by lower patient volumes and fixed operational expenses.
• Direct cost comparison is limited without understanding the underlying unit cost curves for each service delivery model.