Ms Laura Jeffs, Dr Ingrid Lensink
1Allied and Scientific Health Office South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract:
Designing healthcare services to achieve responsiveness, consumer outcomes, and cost effectiveness is essential for public healthcare in the context of high demand and clinical complexity. Avoidance of the Emergency Department for particular consumer cohorts such as those experiencing low back pain, falls without head strike, complex social factors, geriatric syndromes, vestibular issues and specific foot wounds is one such way of driving timely access to care and improving system flow. The introduction of allied health led pathways in hospital avoidance clinics inclusive of advanced practice physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and podiatrists is critical to enabling these pathways, but little is known about the economic value of this model.
To evaluate the impact and economic benefit of implementing such a model statewide, the Allied and Scientific Health Office engaged health economists, an SA Health exemplar service, and the broader SA Health workforce to complete a cost benefit analysis. The method included comparing different consumer trajectories for the model of care and then identifying and monetising key benefits and costs. Results indicated a statewide model inclusive of 26 allied health advanced practitioners had capacity to save the health system $206 million in Emergency Department avoidance and $247 million in hospital avoidance as 32,000 presentations annually are diverted to hospital avoidance clinics across the state. The proposed model of care has a benefit-cost ratio of 1.8, indicating that it is expected that for each $1 of cost, $1.8 is returned to the SA community in benefits.