Kostnadsestimering och beslutsteori: hemsjukvård och konventionell vård

Sammanfattning: The aim of the study was to evaluate whether home health care is a better choice of care from an economic and quality of care perspective than conventional care for people over 65. To answer this, the costs for the two care models were estimated using parametric cost estimation. The quality of care and the cost were evaluated with the "Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process" to determine which of the care models was the best fit. The cost estimate showed that conventional care is cheaper than home care. However, a sensitivity analysis shows that a minimal efficiency in the number of home visits per patient is sufficient for home health care to become the most advantageous alternative from an economic point of view. In addition, a sensitivity analysis also shows that home health care is preferable in five cases out of six, when the weights obtained from the "Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process" are varied. In this preference system, both the cost and the characteristics that make up quality of care are weighted to be summed up to a comprehensive list of priorities of the two care options. Main process maps of the two care models were made to help find significant cost parameters for the two care models. The preparation of the main process maps was done by studying similar process maps to compile two complete overall process maps. However, no significant cost parameters were found when studying the process maps, but they are still included in the study to show the reader an overall difference between the two models. The study shows that home health care is usually more expensive than on-site care, but that home health care is, from a quality point of view, preferable to conventional care.