2053P - Dehospitalization through outpatient drug release in clinical pharmacy as a strategic cost-minimization action in a public oncology hospital in the Eastern Amazon: A quantitative analysis

Background

In recent decades, the home care initiative has expanded in the health system, mainly linked to hospitals. The mismatch between available financial resources and advances related to cancer therapy requires projects to improve cost minimization processes.

Methods

The variables collected for each sector were described through monthly totals and averages per year. To verify the existence of an association between expenses with material, medication and chemotherapy and the cost avoided with monthly dehospitalization, Pearson's correlation coefficients and their respective p-values were calculated. Spending on medication and total spending on material, medication and chemotherapy were related to the amount avoided using linear regression models, in order to estimate the effect of increased spending on medication on avoided costs. The same procedure was performed to estimate the effect of increased costs on bed turnover, using linear regressions, and on the number of days of hospitalization avoided per month, using Poisson regression.

Results

Pearson's coefficients confirm a relationship, with a positive sign, between expenses and avoided costs with early dehospitalization, showing a perfect positive relationship between the variables, with a statistically significant p-value. Effect of expenses on total costs with hospitalization avoided on General Hospitalization, Coefficients - Amount spent on medication:100.36; 95% CI (14.26, 186.45); p-value= 0.02. By the linear model, the total avoided cost with discharges was $795,204.52 in the three-year period from 2020 to 2022, for a total of 3,722 avoided hospitalization days and an average cost avoided with discharges of $70,146.06. Effect of expenses on the days of hospitalization avoided (Poisson regression) was statistically significant in all variables (p-value<0.001).

Conclusions

All tests - Pearson Correlation coefficients, Poisson regression, and Generalized Linear Model (p<0.05) confirmed the hypothesis that the discharge managing with outpatient drug release has a significant effect on the final cost avoided with cancer hospitalization.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.