Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients With Multiple Myeloma: An Activity-based Costing Analysis, Comparing a Total Inpatient Model Versus an Early Discharge Model.

Background: Activity-based costing (ABC) was developed and advocated as a means of overcoming the systematic distortions of traditional cost accounting.

Materials And Methods: We calculated the cost of high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in patients with multiple myeloma using the ABC method, through 2 different care models: the total inpatient model (TIM) and the early-discharge outpatient model (EDOM) and compared this with the approved diagnosis related-groups (DRG) Italian tariffs.

Results: The TIM and EDOM models involved a total cost of €28,615.