Report on the interventions costs/price of the Ava monitoring device

TASK 41 Determining the intervention costs M1M4 VIVE UMCUTask 41 involves determining the intervention costs of the AVA monitoring device Interventions costs comprise the costs of implementing and operating the system MethodsDuring the cohort study we will collect cost data related to the AVA monitoring device In estimating costs we follow the lines of Drummond et al 2015 37 and the Dutch Guideline for economic evaluation in healthcare 38 Estimating costs in a health economic evaluation consists of three steps First we identify all relevant additional costs associated with the intervention and identify whether there are cost savings relative to standard treatment This is done in close collaboration with the team running the intervention Secondly we measure the resource use in the natural unit This means that the costs of the intervention will be measured as AVA devices purchased programmer hours spent doctor hours spent etc Data will as far as possible be collected from administrative data as well as accounting data from within the project Finally when all the relevant cost components are identified and measured using their natural unit each cost component is valued using the appropriate unit pricesThis rigorous approach to cost estimation provides full transparency of the individual cost component and makes international comparison easier as unit costs might differ substantially between countries The costs will be divided into fixed and variable costs to access the expected costs per patient when implementing the AVA monitoring device to the very large scale The costs will be calculated for the technological equipment as well as the costs associated with health care professionals as these two cost components might differ substantially in an international context