The costs and benefits of bowel cancer service developments using discrete event simulation

H Pilgrim (), P Tappenden (), J Chilcott, M Bending, P Trueman, A Shorthouse and J Tappenden
Additional contact information
H Pilgrim: University of Sheffield
P Tappenden: University of Sheffield
J Chilcott: University of Sheffield
M Bending: University of York
P Trueman: University of York
A Shorthouse: St Mary's Hospital
J Tappenden: Barnsley District General Hospital

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2009, vol. 60, issue 10, 1305-1314

Abstract: Abstract Colorectal cancer includes cancerous growths in the colon, rectum and appendix and affects around 30 000 people in England each year. Maximizing health benefits for patients with colorectal cancer requires consideration of costs and outcomes across the whole service. In an era of scarce healthcare resources, there is a need to consider not only whether technologies and services may be considered clinically effective, but also whether they are cost-effective, that is, whether they represent value for money for the health service. Through the development of a whole disease model, it is possible to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a range of options for service development consistently within a common framework. Discrete event simulation has been used to model the complete colorectal cancer patient pathway from patient presentation through to referral and diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, potential recurrence, treatment of metastases and end-of-life care. This simulation model has been used to examine the potential cost-effectiveness of different options for change across the entire colorectal cancer pathway. This paper provides an empirical demonstration of the potential application of modelling entire disease areas to inform clinical policy and resource allocation decision-making.

Keywords: simulation; bowel cancer; health service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/jors.2008.109 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:60:y:2009:i:10:d:10.1057_jors.2008.109

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/41274

DOI: 10.1057/jors.2008.109

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Palgrave Macmillan, The OR Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().