| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Is a dedicated specialist social worker working exclusively with psychogeriatric inpatients and an associated dedicated domiciliary care package cost-effective? | | Author(s) | Ajit Shah, Balaji Wuntakal, Jeffrey Fehler |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 13, no 3, September 2001 |
| Pages | pp 337-346 |
| Keywords | Psychogeriatric patients ; Admission [hospitals] ; Discharge [hospitals] ; Psychiatric social workers ; Domiciliary services ; Cost effectiveness ; London. |
| Annotation | A study at a London hospital's psychogeriatric unit compared length of stay and bed usage over a 7-month period when a dedicated social worker and a dedicated budget for domiciliary care packages were implemented, with an identical 7-month period in the year before. Costs incurred for extra-contractual referral admissions (ECRs) were also calculated for the same periods. Implementation of a dedicated social worker and budget for domiciliary care did not demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in length of stay, but bed usage was reduced in both the local National Health Service (NHS) hospital and the ECR units. The costs incurred for ECR admissions were also reduced; this reduction in costs was similar to the cost of employing a dedicated specialist social worker working with the domiciliary care package. Ideally, a multi-centre, randomised and controlled study of such an intervention's effectiveness should be undertaken to confirm these findings. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020215204 A |
| Classmark | LF:E: LD:QKH: LD:QKJ: QSA: N: WEC: 82L |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|