Toward value-based care using cost mining: cost aggregation and visualization across the entire colorectal cancer patient pathway

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study is to develop a method we call “cost mining” to unravel cost variation and identify cost drivers by modelling integrated patient pathways from primary care to the palliative care setting. This approach fills an urgent need to quantify financial strains on healthcare systems, particularly for colorectal cancer, which is the most expensive cancer in Australia, and the second most expensive cancer globally. Methods: We developed and published a customized algorithm that dynamically estimates and visualizes the mean, minimum, and total costs of care at the patient level, by aggregating activity-based healthcare system costs (e.g. DRGs) across integrated pathways..