Table 2 shows in detail mean total costs and resource utilization per patient for the different health professions and specific activities.
Medication use during the first cycle was categorized by drug therapeutic class; health care resource utilization during the first cycle was categorized by hospitalization days and outpatient visits.
For neutropenia-related utilization per cycle for all cycles (including cycles without neutropenia-related utilization), there were more ambulatory visits (2.1 vs. 0.36 per cycle, P < 0.001) and hospitalizations (0.02 vs. 0.01 per cycle, P = 0.146) with filgrastim than with pegfilgrastim (mean ER visits were 0 for both groups).
Here, U i,t is the resource utilization of application i at time cycle t.
The purpose of this study was therefore to assess process improvement from organizational change in the areas of resource utilization and allocation and cycle time and cost reduction.
Specifically, health care resource utilization costs per patient totaled US$2,734 with the SPC and US$3,490 in controls (P = 0.024).
Healthcare resource utilization and costs on a per-cycle basis were examined for neutropenia-related causes (with both the broad and narrow criteria for neutropenia) and all causes (Table 4).
Pingtung Hospital is a regional hospital with 3 acute wards and 100 beds, an emergency volume of 300 cases per month and a resource utilization of about 10 million Taiwan dollars per month.
Penghu Hospital is a regional hospital with 5 acute wards and 150 beds, an emergency volume of 600 cases per month and a resource utilization of about 15 million Taiwan dollars per month.
Kaohsiung General Hospital is a teaching hospital with 20 acute wards and 650 beds, 50 ICU beds, an emergency volume of 5500 cases per month and a resource utilization of about 150 million Taiwan dollars per month.
The average resource utilization in the study group (US$ 2737/year, per case) was higher than the control group (US$ 2041) (t = 7.91, p < 0.001).
