Managing finite resources
The public healthcare system is a system of infinite demand and finite resources. This is especially true for mental illnesses, where rising numbers of vulnerable individuals with chronic disorders require long-term financial commitment for their prolonged care. The current dashboard investigates a new possibly sustainable, efficient treatment for care of bipolar patients.
Preliminary data suggests that the new treatment is superior to the currently used one, in that patients recover from illness quicker and stay in recovery without relapsing for longer (Card 2). The current dashboard summarizes the findings of a cost-benefit analysis for this treatment (Card 3).
New treatment superiority
A randomized control trial has been conducted with 3,000 bipolar outpatients receiving the new care strategy and 3,000 receiving treatment as usual. Patients in a healthy state were followed throughout the years to see how many will fall ill and later recover from their illness.
In the graph we see that as early as 5 years in public health benefits can already be seen in that less patients became severely ill (in light purple). Many more patients recovered throughout the years and remained in recovery (green). The evidence is promising that the benefits of implementing the new strategy could be substantial.
Sensitivity analysis of cost
The new strategy has potential to be of public health benefit, however the implementation costs have not been determined. Some groups providers claim implementation can cast as low as £1,000 per patient per year extra. Others cite costs as high as £4,000 per year. Important to also account that if the treatment is very effective, the costs of patient care will be offset by the savings of a more healthy population.
With costs being unknown, a simulation study was conducted to investigate how different prices of the new strategy could ultimately affect the tax payer. The graph on the right summarizes the results and shows that only if the new care is more expensive than £2,800 pounds per year will costs not be worth the investment.
Making decisions under uncertainty
The rising costs of healthcare are pressing for sustainable and efficient innovation. In this analysis we introduced a novel strategy for care and support of patients with bipolar mood disorder. We demonstrated that it is of public health benefit using data from a large scale randomized control trial. Then, we used that data combined with uncertainty about costs to come up with a zone where the new strategy is preferrable.
Concretely, the costs outweigh the benefits after the £2,800 mark. If the new strategy costs less than £2,800, it should be implemented unequivocally. If the new strategy ends up costing more than that, a public discussion should be had about about priorities of investment.
