Investigating the predictors of chronic care annual funding requirements under activity-based funding

Background Most health systems in developed countries are struggling to contain the costs of providing high-quality health care to their populations. Factors such as population growth, demographic aging, changing clinical practices, and lower mortality all result in increased demand for hospital services. In addition, falling mortality rates result in a larger number of people living with chronic conditions for a longer amount of time. The increased demand for services and the prevalence of chronic disease lead to higher health care costs. Increasingly, countries are focusing on ways to keep people living with chronic conditions relatively healthy and being treated within the primary care setting — rather than allowing their condition to deteriorate until hospital care is required. Doing so requires implementing funding models that encourage integrated, effective, and preventive care. As a first step in developing such alternative models, it is useful to understand the costs of providing care under the current model, and to be able to predict which individual patients might benefit under an alternative care model.