Aim: Aim of this study was to provide insight into the costs associated with severe mental illnesses from a societal perspective. Insight into expenses is of value to policymakers and mental health institutions that are dealing with ongoing budget cuts. A reliable cost estimate is also necessary to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions and make decisions on reimbursement. Methods: Baseline costs were calculated for 188 individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) who wish to increase their societal participation defined as paid or unpaid work, education and meaningful daily activities. Costs were measured from a societal perspective by means of the TIC-P questionnaire and expressed in Euros.
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Increasing urbanization and the effects of climate change will bring new challenges for cities, such as energy saving and supply of renewable energy, preventing urban heat islands and water retention to deal with more frequent downpours. A major urban surface, the surface of roofs, is nowadays hardly exploited and could be used to make cities more ‘future proof’ or resilient. Many Dutch municipalities have become aware that the use of green roofs as opposed to bituminous roofs positively contributes to these challenges and are stimulating building-owners to retrofit their building with green roofs. This study aims at comparing costs and benefits of roof types, focused on green roofs (intensive and extensive) both on building- and city scale. Core question is the balance between costs and benefits for both scales, given varying local conditions. Which policy measures might be needed in the future in order to apply green roofs strategically in regard to local demands? To answer this question the balance of costs and benefits of green roofs is divided into a public and an individual part. Both balances use a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats framework to determine the chance of success for the application of green roofs, considering that the balance for green roofs on an individual scale influences the balance on a public scale. The outcome of this combined analyses in the conclusion verifies that a responsible policy and a local approach towards green roofs is necessary to prepare the city sufficiently for future climate changes. http://dx.doi.org/10.13044/j.sdewes.d6.0225
MULTIFILE
The term crowdsourcing was introduced by Jeff Howe (2006). It is the act of a company or organisation to take a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined, and usually large, network of people in the form of an open call. As communication tools to organize work have become widely available, and a well-educated global work force has come online, crowdsourcing has become an increasingly important mechanism to organize work. We discuss a categorisation of crowdsourcing, its costs and benefits and several examples. The use of crowdsourcing begins with the question which strategic goal an organisation wants to achieve, and whether the benefits outweigh the costs. We give some recommendations for adopting crowdsourcing. This usually requires a certain amount of restructuring of existing workflows and a willingness to become more open which may or may not be a welcome side effect.
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Based on reflection of elements of theories of social capital, institutional economics, presence and prosocial motivation, the authors are developing a conceptual model to reduce costs in health care leading to the hypothesis : more trust leads to fewer transaction costs. Furthermore, a case study in a new form of cooperation within a new to construct hospital is presented in order to explore the hypothesis
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AbstractOBJECTIVES:After hospitalization, many older adults need post-acute care, including rehabilitation or home care. However, post-acute care expenses can be as high as the costs for the initial hospitalization. Detailed information on monthly post-acute health care expenditures and the characteristics of patients that make up for a large share of these expenditures is scarce. We aimed to calculate costs in acutely hospitalized older patients and identify patient characteristics that are associated with high post-acute care costs.DESIGN:Prospective multicenter cohort study (between October 2015 and June 2017).SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:401 acutely hospitalized older persons from internal medicine, cardiology, and geriatric wards.MEASUREMENTS:Our primary outcome was mean post-acute care costs within 90 days postdischarge. Post-acute care costs included costs for unplanned readmissions, home care, nursing home care, general practice, and rehabilitation care. Three costs categories were defined: low [0-50th percentile (p0-50)], moderate (p50-75), and high (p75-100). Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the associations between costs and frailty, functional impairment, health-related quality of life, cognitive impairment, and depressive symptoms.RESULTS:Costs were distributed unevenly in the population, with the top 10.0% (n = 40) accounting for 52.1% of total post-acute care costs. Mean post-acute care costs were €4035 [standard deviation (SD) 4346] or $4560 (SD 4911). Frailty [odds ratio (OR) 3.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.78-6.63], functional impairment (OR 1.80, 95% CI 1.03-3.16), and poor health-related quality of life (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.09-3.28) at admission were associated with classification in the high-cost group, compared with the low-cost group.CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS:Post-acute care costs are substantial in a small portion of hospitalized older adults. Frailty, functional impairment, and poor health-related quality of life are associated with higher post-acute care costs and may be used as an indicator of such costs in practice.
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This video provides small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with a concise breakdown of the costs involved in initiating a data science project. It categorizes expenses into three primary areas: personnel, infrastructure, and data-related costs. Through a practical example of a marketing agency’s venture into customer segmentation, viewers get a tangible sense of potential expenditures. Emphasizing the importance of clear project goals and efficient resource allocation, the session offers insights into making cost-effective decisions in data science endeavors.
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Abstract: Teledentistry offers possibilities for improving efficiency and quality of care and supporting cost-effective healthcare systems. This umbrella review aims to synthesize existing systematic reviews on teledentistry and provide a summary of evidence of its clinical- and cost-effectiveness. A comprehensive search strategy involving various teledentistry-related terms, across seven databases, was conducted. Articles published until 24 April 2023 were considered. Two researchers independently reviewed titles, abstracts and full-text articles. The quality of the included reviews was critically appraised with the AMSTAR-2 checklist. Out of 749 studies identified, 10 were included in this umbrella review. Two reviews focusing on oral-health outcomes revealed that, despite positive findings, there is not yet enough evidence for the long-term clinical effectiveness of teledentistry. Ten reviews reported on economic evaluations or costs, indicating that teledentistry is cost-saving. However, these conclusions were based on assumptions due to insufficient evidence on cost-effectiveness. The main limitation of our umbrella review was the critically low quality of the included reviews according to AMSTAR-2 criteria, with many of these reviews basing their conclusions on low-quality studies. This highlights the need for high-quality experimental studies (e.g., RCTs, factorial designs, stepped-wedge designs, SMARTs and MRTs) to assess teledentistry’s clinical- and cost-effectiveness.
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1. Dynamic conditions in nature have led to the evolution of behavioural traits that allow animals to use information on local circumstances and adjust their behaviour accordingly, for example through learning. Although learning can improve foraging efficiency, the learned information can become unreliable as the environment continues to change. This could lead to potential fitness costs when memories holding such unreliable information persist. Indeed, persistent unreliable memory was found to reduce the foraging efficiency of the parasitoid Cotesia glomerata under laboratory conditions. 2. Here, we evaluated the effect of such persistent unreliable memory on the foraging behaviour of C. glomerata in the field. This is a critical step in studies of foraging theory, since animal behaviour evolved under the complex conditions present in nature. 3. Existing methods provide little detail on how parasitoids interact with their environment in the field, therefore we developed a novel multi-camera system that allowed us to trace parasitoid foraging behaviour in detail. With this multi-camera system, we studied how persistent unreliable memory affected the foraging behaviour of C. glomerata when these memories led parasitoids to plants infested with non-host caterpillars in a semi-field set-up. 4. Our results demonstrate that persistent unreliable memory can lead to maladaptive foraging behaviour in C. glomerata under field conditions and increased the likelihood of oviposition in the non-host caterpillar Mamestra brassica. Furthermore, these time- and egg-related costs can be context dependent, since they rely on the plant species used. 5. These results provide us with new insight on how animals use previously obtained information in naturally complex and dynamic foraging situations and confirm that costs and benefits of learning depend on the environment animals forage in. Although behavioural studies of small animals in natural habitats remain challenging, novel methods such as our multi-camera system contribute to understanding the nuances of animal foraging behaviour.
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A model to describe biogas transport costs in a regional grid is presented. In the model biogas is collected to a central location by transport through dedicated pipelines. Costs have been calculated for two different lay-outs of the grid i.e. star and fishbone lay-out. The costs depend on the covered area and the size of the digesters. Model results show that in a star layout transport costs for small scale digesters are much higher than costs for large scale digesters and costs in a fishbone lay-out are lower than costs in a star lay-out.
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