McDonagh M, Miller S, Naden E; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.
Annu Meet Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1999; 15: 77.
Departments of Pharmacy, Harborview Medical Center and University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Pharmacy based Investigational Drug Services (IDS) are becoming more common in institutions participating in drug research. While the methods of charging for these services have been discussed in the literature, the costs and benefits of such a program have not been investigated. OBJECTIVE: This report examines the actual costs and savings of these services from the perspective of the pharmacy in a health care system. METHODS: Data for this analysis come from the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, for the 1996-1997 fiscal year. During this time, the IDS was involved with a total of 255 studies, and employed a total of 4.85 FTE's. The methods of identifying costs were threefold. First, the cost of the FTE's was obtained from the University of Washington human resources department. Second, the charges for IDS services assessed and collected were obtained from IDS billing records. Lastly, the costs avoided by drug provided free by the study sponsor as a part of a study protocol was calculated. Contract prices in effect at the end of the 1996-97 fiscal year were used to calculate costs avoided. Investigational drugs for which there was no alternative were not included in the cost avoidance calculation, but were included in the charges for IDS services (i.e. dispensing charges). RESULTS: Only 31% of the 255 studies the IDS was involved with were appropriate for inclusion in the drug cost avoidance calculation. Drug costs avoided totalled $2.8 million. The two diagnosis categories with the largest cost avoidance figures were AIDS and oncology. The total charged for IDS services during the 1996-1997 fiscal year were $88,885. Of this, $77,661 (87%) was actually received during the fiscal year. The cost of salaries/benefits for pharmacists and technical staff for the IDS was $194,483. Overall, the Pharmacy IDS resulted in the institution saving $2.8 million, largely in reduction of the drug budget. CONCLUSIONS: The generalizability of these findings may be limited by several factors, including differences in the type of studies a given institution is involved with. While it is often not clear how institutions (outside of the investigators) benefit by participating in drug company research, this study clearly demonstrates that tangible benefits can accrue to institutional providers of care.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Biomedical Research
- Costs and Cost Analysis
- Drug Costs
- Drugs, Investigational
- Evaluation Studies
- Humans
- Income
- Pharmaceutical Services
- Pharmacies
- Pharmacists
- Research
- Research Personnel
- Research Support as Topic
- Washington
- economics
- methods
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102194072
From Meeting Abstracts