A study on economic evaluation of an outreach health-care facility in Jhajjar District of Haryana: Service delivery model for increasing access to health care.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: An outreach (OR) health-care facility providing broad specialty outpatient services was started by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, in rural area of district Jhajjar, Haryana. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to ascertain the resource requirement for establishing an OR health-care facility and patient satisfaction with regard to the services being provided. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 at an OR Outpatient Department (OPD) of AIIMS, New Delhi, at Jhajjar. Service delivery model adopted for health-care delivery was hub and spoke. Traditional method of costing was used for economic evaluation. Feedback pro forma of 400 patients who attended OPD services was analyzed to measure health service accessibility. RESULTS: Capital expenditure to set up the facility was calculated to be approximately INR 17,57,49,074/- ($ 2,703,832) and operational cost per year was approximately INR 8,73,86,370/- ($ 1,344,406). Approximate per-patient cost for single OPD consultation was calculated to be INR 874 ($13.45) which included medicines and investigations. High scores for all domains of accessibility of health care were observed. CONCLUSION: The study provides a preliminary evidence that OR health-care facilities can be instrumental in increasing access to health-care delivery with lesser capital outlays, however, large-scale multicentric studies are needed to arrive at any conclusion. The services have been very well accepted by the local community members being quality medical care with highly subsidized health-care services.