ECN US provides support for the release of the study

A group of competent researchers succeeded to publish a research paper that is the first of its kind in Egypt to deal with economic and financial aspects related to childhood cancer care.

“Estimating the resources utilized and costs of childhood cancer care can help in better management of resources to improve survival outcomes effectively”, shares Dr. Ranin Soliman, the main author of the research paper and head of the Health Economics and Value (HEV) unit at the CCHE–57357.

The study included 8,886 children with cancer diagnosed and treated at CCHE–57357, aged 0–18 years old, between 2013 and 2017. The researchers analyzed comprehensive costs data for all types of childhood cancers, as well as all the resources utilized during their treatment journey including: length of inpatient hospital stay, number of hospital admissions, outpatient visits, medications, laboratory tests, imaging tests, surgeries, and radiotherapy sessions.

“CCHE paved the way to capture such enormous amounts of big data through its precise and reliable documenting systems Cerner and Oracle“, reveals Dr. Ranin Soliman, explaining the significance of the two documenting systems Cerner and Oracle being among the ingredients of success of the research project. The Oracle system documents all patient-related costs of care, while Cerner includes comprehensive information regarding patients’ clinical data and hospital resource utilization.  The availability of such data enabled the researchers to generate real-world evidence based on reliable 57357 records.

Thanks to ECN–US for its steadfast belief in the hospital’s mission and for the financial support to this project that brings it to light. The research paper project is part of Dr. Soliman’s DPhil in Evidence-based Healthcare at the University of Oxford. Dr. Soliman ‘s extensive experience in various fields including clinical research, health economics, evidence-based healthcare, and health informatics has qualified her to perfectly carry out this unique study. This research work was supervised by Dr. Alaa Elhaddad (Head of Pediatric Oncology Department) and Dr. Wael Eweida (Chief Operating Officer), along with a team of experienced professionals from Oxford, with the encouragement of Dr. Sherif Abouelnaga due to his belief in the significant impact of this work.

Among the main findings of the study was that patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), and Neuroblastoma imposed the greatest economic and financial burden on CCHE–57357, representing 53.1% of total costs. AML patients had the highest costs/resource use of all childhood cancers. Findings from this study will enable decision-makers to make better hospital resource planning and budgeting to improve survival outcomes efficiently with optimal resource utilization, based on real-world evidence.

For example increasing bed capacity for Bone Marrow Transplantation for indicated leukemia patients will improve survival outcomes in a cost-effective manner.

The Health Economics and Value unit at CCHE–57357 is striving to optimize the hospital’s limited resources and to fully utilize the available budgets to improve care and survival outcomes for the patients, based on the generated evidence. Earlier to this study, Dr. Soliman published a research paper about the survival rates and trends in survival for 15,000 children with cancer from CCHE–57357. With her continuous efforts, she aims to study the relationship between costs and survival outcomes and to find ways to provide the most cost-effective treatment for children with cancer at CCHE–57357.