Premium
Economic analysis of outreach assessment clinics in breast screening programmes
Author(s) -
van der Pol M. M.,
Cairns J. A.,
Gilbert F. J.,
Hendry P. J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
the international journal of health planning and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1099-1751
pISSN - 0749-6753
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1751(199901/03)14:1<57::aid-hpm531>3.0.co;2-u
Subject(s) - outreach , medicine , family medicine , breast screening , gynecology , mammography , economic growth , breast cancer , economics , cancer
A model is developed for the economic evaluation of outreach assessment clinics following screening and used to identify the cost‐minimizing strategy for assessing women from three island communities in the Scottish Breast Screening Programme (SBSP). There are four options of interest depending on: whether the women are assessed on the mainland or at outreach assessment clinics; and whether all women have two view screening rather than only those being screened for the first time. The benefits of outreach assessment are assumed to be solely in terms of convenience to women and reductions in the time and travel costs of women recalled for assessment. The costs are modelled in order to compare outreach and no outreach options. The results show that for the numbers of women currently screened outreach assessment is the cost‐minimizing strategy. The model provides useful guidance with respect to screening policy and is readily applied to the case of outreach assessment in mainland communities outwith major population centres and to breast and other screening programmes in other countries. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.