BackgroundPostpartum depression (PPD) affects 10-15% of women, is costly and debilitating, yet often remains undiagnosed. Within Alberta, Canada, screening is conducted at public health well child clinics using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. If screened high-risk, women are offered referral to their family physicians for follow up diagnosis and treatment.
| Thomas Lange
A healthy mouth is an essential ingredient for overall good health, but a Canadian’s access to comprehensive dental care is dependent on their ability to attain private insurance. This paper seeks to estimate the gross and net total cost of two policy options for introducing comprehensive dental care into Canadian Medicare. Using a micro-costing approach for estimating the…
| Thomas Lange
This paper presents a formulaic approach to micro-costing the expected direct clinical cost of a given public dental program in Canada. A micro-costing approach enables policy leaders to create or radically redesign existing public-sector dental programs by projecting the total cost generated by expected clinical demand. Current public dental plans employ heavy restrictions around…
The recent report by Alberta’s Blue ribbon panel on the province’s finances denounced Alberta’s Fee-for-Service (FFS) model as a significant source of inefficiency and cost within the health system, going as far as to suggest legislating a non-FFS model. If pursued, Alberta would be the first province since the start of Canadian Medicare to fully shift away from…
Although probabilistic analysis has become the accepted standard for decision analytic cost-effectiveness models, deterministic one-way sensitivity analysis continues to be used to meet the need of decision makers to understand the impact that changing the value taken by one specific parameter has on the results of the analysis. The value of a probabilistic form of one-way sensitivity…
The objective of this study, published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, was to describe the trends in pharmacologic treatment for patients newly diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Alberta, Canada.
This study examined children’s health care service use, mothers’ workforce participation, and mothers’ community engagement based on children’s risk of developmental delay.
This study, published in PharmacoEconomics – Open, reports exploratory analysis of the provincial and nationwide costs of industry-sponsored drug clinical trials (CTs) in Canada. The costs of industry-sponsored drug CTs completed in 2016 were Can$2.1 billion. In addition to the creation of knowledge, these trials play an important role in alleviating the healthcare cost burden…
Abstract: Affecting 10–15% of women, postpartum depression (PPD) can be debilitating and costly. While early identification has the potential to improve timely care, recommendations regarding the implementation of routine screening are inconsistent. In Alberta, screening is completed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale during public health well child clinic visits.…
Education of women regarding healthy lifestyle choices is an important function for prenatal care providers. Within Canada, women choose to receive pregnancy care from one of a variety of publicly funded care providers. This study examines the association between the type of care provider(s) seen during pregnancy and the provision of advice related to nutrition, weight management,…
| David Birnie, Jeff Healey, George Wells, Felix Ayala-Paredes, Benoit Coutu, Glen Sumner, Giuliano Becker, Atul Verma, François Philippon, Eli Kalfon, John Eikelboom, Roopinder Sandhu, Pablo Nery, Nicholas Lellouche, Stuart Connolly, John Sapp, Vidal Essebag
Guidelines recommend warfarin continuation rather than heparin bridging for pacemaker and defibrillator surgery, after the BRUISE CONTROL trial demonstrated an 80% reduction in device pocket haematoma with this approach. However, direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are now used to treat the majority of patients with atrial fibrillation. We sought to understand the best strategy…
In pharmaceutical clinical trials, industrial sponsors pay for study drugs and related healthcare services. We conducted a study to determine industry’s economic contribution of these trials to the Alberta healthcare system.