Designing an Efficient Model for Cost Management of Non-Surgical Cancer Treatment in Iran

Human health is a fundamental right and a valuable asset for all members of a society at any level and social class. The existence of a strong and stable health system in a country displays the all-round stability of that society. The three main characteristics for evaluating the performance of the health system include the health status of the community, citizens' satisfaction with the services provided by the health sector, and protection against financial risks. Therefore, the aim of the current research was to design an efficient model for cost management of non-surgical cancer treatment in Iran.

This was a descriptive-analytical study with a survey method conducted in 2018. The method of data collection was a library (through examining hospital records) and the tool used was a questionnaire. For this purpose, an available sample consisting of 50 elites from the fields of health service management and health economics was selected and were asked to answer the designed questionnaire. The data collected by means of the main statistics used in the Delphi technique were the central measurements (mean, median and mean) and dispersion index, standard deviation and interquartile range.

The amount of extracted variances was 0.529 after management of visit costs, 0.518 after management of diagnosis costs, 0.494 after management of hospitalization costs, 0.496 after management of chemotherapy costs, and 0.501 after management of radiation therapy costs. These results indicated that the amount of extracted variances was higher than 0.5; moreover, all the AVE values of the model dimensions were lower than the combined reliability, as a result the, condition of convergent validity was established.

The results of the present study indicated that the costs of non-surgical cancer treatment could be classified into 5 main indicators, including the cost of visits, diagnosis, hospitalization, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.