Resumen

CRUZADO QUEVEDO, J. et al. The costs of a program of minor surgery during one year in a Primary Health Care centre. Medifam [online]. 2003, vol.13, n.4, pp.41-48. ISSN 1131-5768.

Backgrounds: there are some studies about experience and effectiveness of minor surgical procedures (MS) in Primary Health Care (PHC) but there are still many  unknowns about the cost of these activities to be able comparisons of their results among different  levels of care and geographical areas.   Objective: to measure the costs of MS practice for a year in PHC centre.  Design: retrospective descriptive cost analysis study.  Material and methods: this study was developed in PHC over 479 patients treated with different MS procedures since January until December of 1998.  We included all patients suffered from skin lesions or toenails pa-thologies who were treated with programmed surgeries procedures. We excluded patients suffered from skin lesions and required an immediate treatment, suspected to have a malignant lesion, or some previous keloides, being under risk of presenting neurological injury, being allergic to local analgesic, or being under anticoagulation treatment. The costs of cryotherapy and the costs of other MS procedures were evaluated separately.  Results: we evaluated a total of 336 cryotherapy sessions in 267 patients. The annual total cost was 589,857 ptas. (3,545.11€). The average cost per procedures was 1,755 ptas. (10.55€). The average cost per patient was 2,209 ptas. (13.28€). Also, we evaluated a total of 212 sessions of other minor surgery procedures in 212 patients. The annual total cost was 1.627.228 ptas. (9.979€). The average cost per patient was 7,676 ptas (46.13€).  Conclusion: we have not found any similar study in Secondary Health Care (SHC) in our region  to compare with our study. In our opinion, the minor surgery programs in PHC show a low cost. It is necessary to use standardized methods of economic evaluation in PHC and SHC to compare results.

Palabras clave : Minor surgery; Primary Health Care; Cost analysis.

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