Health Care Cost | Colorectal Cancer Evaluation Measures

Health care costs measures for colorectal cancer screening1-4

In contrast with the worker productivity costs described above, health care costs are measures of the direct medical expenses of providing employee health care and preventive health programs.

Baseline

  • Determine costs and use for health care such as outpatient visits, screening, diagnostic procedures (e.g., biopsies), hospitalizations, and treatment (e.g., surgery or chemotherapy) for colorectal cancer related illness and disability
  • Determine the health care use and costs of program participants before education and other programs are initiated and after operation of these programs

Process

  • Periodic repeats of baseline measures

Outcome

  • Assess changes in health care use and costs from baseline
  • Compare health care use and costs of program participants before education and other programs are initiated and after operation of these programs
  • The purpose of colorectal cancer screening is as a valuable early detection tool that can identify colorectal cancer at an early stage when treatment is more effective and less expensive. As screening rates improve, detection of colorectal cancers will show an early overall increase. Over time, the rates of detection of early stage tumors should increase while detection of tumors already in their late stages should decrease   
  • Decreases in colorectal cancer death rates may not occur for several years
References

1.  Campbell KP, Lanza A, Dixon R, Chattopadhyay S, Molinari N, Finch RA, editors. A Purchaser’s Guide to Clinical Preventive Services: Moving Science into Coverage. Washington, DC: National Business Group on Health; 2006.

2.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Framework for program evaluation in public health. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1999;48(No. RR-11): 1-40.

3.  Matson Koffman DM, Lanza A, Campbell KP. A Purchaser’s Guide to Clinical Preventive Services: A tool to improve health care coverage for prevention. Preventing Chronic Disease, April 2008; 5(2).

4.  Goetzel RZ, Ozminkowski RJ. Program evaluation. In: O’Donnell MP, editor. Health promotion in the workplace, 3rd edition. Albany, NY: Delmar Thomson Learning; 2002. p 116-165.