OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to estimate the time to breakeven and 5-year net costs of laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) taking both direct and indirect costs and cost savings into account. METHODS Estimates of direct cost savings from LAGB were available from the literature. Although longitudinal data on indirect cost savings were not available, these estimates wer...

It is well established that preventive care reduces the prevalence of disease and helps people live longer, healthier lives. Analysis of the cost-effectiveness of preventive care can guide policy-makers to allocate scarce resources. This synthesis reviews the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of clinical preventive care. Key findings include: although many preventive services are a good value ...

We report a policy experiment that illustrates a potential problem of using historical pass-through rates as a means of predicting the competitive consequences of projected firmspecific cost savings in antitrust contexts, particularly in merger analysis. The effects of cost savings on welfare can vary vastly, depending on how the savings affect the industry supply schedule. In a capacity-constr...

BACKGROUND The cost-benefit of raccoon rabies control strategies such as oral rabies vaccination (ORV) are under evaluation. As an initial quantification of the potential cost savings for a control program, the collection of selected rabies cost data was pilot tested for five counties in New York State (NYS) in a three-year period. METHODS Rabies costs reported to NYS from the study counties ...

OBJECTIVE To compare three pediatric asthma interventions for their impact on improving the health status of inner-city asthmatic children and in achieving cost savings. STUDY DESIGN A total of 212 children 1 to 16 years of age were randomized into three groups: group 1 (n = 74) received one individualized asthma education session; group 2 (n = 68) received reinforced asthma education; group ...

Confirmation of mutations mostly involves DNA sequencing. The conventional manual radioactive labeling sequencing protocol may be conceived as the method of choice because of the perception that the capital and operational costs of automated sequencers are high. Velickovic et al. (3) reduced the cost of DNA sequencing by running 48 or 64 samples on a 36-lane model 377-01 ABI PRISM automated se...

Chest pain is a common complaint in emergency departments. Several guidelines and tools exist to help the clinician determine need for hospitalization. For low-risk patients, clinical judgment can underestimate a patient's risk of major adverse cardiac event. Implementation of an advanced diagnostic protocol with the HEART Pathway can reduce hospital cost. For our academic institution, we saw a...

BACKGROUND The use of angiotensin-receptor blockers increased by more than 4000% in Canada from 1996 to 2006. The benefit of these medications over angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors has not been proven aside from a reduction in dry cough. We estimated the potential cost savings that might have been achieved had access to angiotensin-receptor blockers been restricted. METHODS We p...

Economic impacts of agricultural carbon sequestration involve direct costs of sequestration management adoption as well as a variety of indirect costs and benefits. The nature and significance of these impacts are discussed. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in agriculture is identified as an influential factor. Techniques to estimate the cost of agricultural carbon sequestration are briefly r...

Energy simulation models are developed with EnergyPlus for two office buildings in a R&D center in Shanghai, China to evaluate the energy cost savings of green building design options compared with the baseline building. As a R&D center of an international IT corporation, there are data centers in the two buildings, which make them different from typical office buildings. The data centers house...