Abstract
Background: The OnCoPaTh Project ("OncoCoaching and Early Palliative Support as Patient-Centered Care Elements in the Treatment of Incurable Cancers"), funded by Germany’s Innovation Fund, aims to enhance patient-centered care for oncology patients with metastases by utilizing an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, specialized onco-coaches, and palliative care nurses to enable early integration of palliative care.
Approach: A socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) is used to evaluate the medium- and long-term costs and benefits of this intervention, analyzing its effects on society at large, the healthcare system, and the individuals and organizations directly involved. SEIA is methodologically based on a cost-benefit approach, based on Drummond's definition and HM Treasury recommendations. It accompanies the implementation process and the intervention study, recording different kinds of costs and benefits of implementing and delivering the intervention. To this end, the financial, time and intangible costs and benefits of the intervention for the stakeholders involved in the care are recorded, monetised and used to calculate various key performance indicators. Relevant stakeholders are actively engaged in developing the stakeholder and indicator model, as well as in the discussion of the final results.
Results: The SEIA uses a variety of data sources: primary surveys, routine data analysis, interviews with Stakeholders and literature review. The expected results, which will be available at ICIC25, will allow conclusions to be made about how the OnCoPaTh intervention can be implemented sustainably in usual care.
Implications: To ensure the success and sustainability of this new form of care, it is crucial to consider various influencing factors, both at the individual level and for the intervention as a whole. The socio-economic impact analysis (SEIA) serves as a tool for identifying potentially disadvantaged stakeholders and modeling scenarios to balance costs and benefits effectively. The results available at ICIC25 will allow conclusions to be drawn for the potential success or challenges of the OnCoPaTh intervention, particularly by highlighting veto players across different levels. Moving forward, these insights can inform strategies to integrate OnCoPaTh into standard care, emphasizing the early involvement of key stakeholders to enhance implementation success.