Cost of integrated chronic care for severe non-communicable diseases at district hospitals in rural Rwanda

What is it about?

Data on the costs of delivering care is essential for governments seeking to invest in noncommunicable disease (NCD) care. However, current costing data for NCD care are often modeled or focus on simple NCDs at primary health centers. This study was performed to determine the initial cost to start and annual cost to operate a public-sector advanced NCD clinic in rural Rwanda. Nurse-driven, physician supervised care is provided at this clinic for severe chronic NCDs, which include type 1 diabetes mellitus and advanced heart failure. This study found a cost of $47, 976 U.S. dollars (USD) was needed to establish a new advanced NCD clinic. The additional annual operating cost for this clinic was $68,975 USD to manage 632 patients. These results show that that these services may be affordable to governments even in the most resource-restricted health systems.

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