Aim: To explore the utilization of permanent residential aged care (PRAC), healthcare costs, and mortality for frail compared with non‐frail individuals following their first assessment by an aged care assessment team (ACAT) for a government‐funded home care package. Methods: The study involved people aged 65 years and over who completed their first ACAT assessment in 2013 and were followed for up to 36 months. Frail and non‐frail study participants were matched through caliper matching without replacement to adjust for potential unobserved confounders. Poisson regression estimated the impact of frailty on PRAC admission and mortality rates. Healthcare costs, encompassing hospital admissions, emergency department presentations, primary care consultations, and pharmaceutical use, from ACAT assessment to end of follow‐up, PRAC entry or death were summarized monthly by frailty status. Results: 13 315 non‐frail controls were matched with up to three frail individuals (52 678 total). Frail individuals experienced higher mortality (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 1.76; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.70–1.83) and greater likelihood of entering PRAC (IRR = 1.73; 95% CI 1.67–1.79) compared with non‐frail individuals. Total healthcare costs over the 3‐year post‐assessment period for 39 363 frail individuals were $1 277 659 900, compared with expected costs of $885 322 522 had they not been frail. The primary contributor to the mean monthly excess cost per frail individual (mean = $457, SD = 3192) was hospital admissions ($345; 75%). Conclusions: Frailty is associated with higher rates of mortality and of entering PRAC, and excess costs of frailty are substantial and sustained over time. These findings emphasize the potential economic value of providing home care for older people before they become frail. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2024; 24: 939–947 .

Background When healthcare budgets are exogenous, cost-effectiveness thresholds (CETs) used to inform funding decisions should represent the health opportunity cost (HOC) of such funding decisions, but HOC-based CET estimates have not been available until recently. In recent years, empirical HOC-based CETs for multiple countries have been published, but the use of these CETs in the cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) literature has not been investigated. Analysis of the use of HOC-based CETs by researchers undertaking CEAs in countries with different decision-making contexts will provide valuable insights to further understand barriers and facilitators to the acceptance and use of HOC-based CETs. Objectives We aimed to identify the CET values used to interpret the results of CEAs published in the scientific literature before and after the publication of jurisdiction-specific empirical HOC-based CETs in four countries. Methods We undertook a scoping review of CEAs published in Spain, Australia, the Netherlands and South Africa between 2016 (2014 in Spain) and 2020. CETs used before and after publication of HOC estimates were recorded. We conducted logit regressions exploring factors explaining the use of HOC values in identified studies and linear models exploring the association of the reported CET value with study characteristics and results. Results 1171 studies were included in this review (870 CEAs and 301 study protocols). HOC values were cited in 28% of CEAs in Spain and in 11% of studies conducted in Australia, but they were not referred to in CEAs undertaken in the Netherlands and South Africa. Regression analyses on Spanish and Australian studies indicate that more recent studies, studies without a conflict of interest and studies estimating an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) below the HOC value were more likely to use the HOC as a threshold reference. In addition, we found a small but significant impact indicating that for every dollar increase in the estimated ICER, the reported CET increased by US$0.015. Based on the findings of our review, we discuss the potential factors that might explain the lack of adoption of HOC-based CETs in the empirical CEA literature. Conclusions The adoption of HOC-based CETs by identified published CEAs has been uneven across the four analysed countries, most likely due to underlying differences in their decision-making processes. Our results also reinforce a previous finding indicating that CETs might be endogenously selected to fit authors’ conclusions.

Purpose: Improved health outcomes for individuals ever diagnosed with cancer require comprehensive, coordinated care that addresses their supportive care needs. Implementing interventions to address these is confounded by a lack of evidence on population needs and a large pool of potential interventions. This systematic review estimates the point prevalence of different supportive care needs stratified by the tool used to measure needs and cancer type in Australia. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and Scopus from 2010 to April 2023 to identify relevant studies published on the prevalence of supportive care needs in Australia. Results: We identified 35 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The highest prevalent unmet need across all cancers was ‘fear of cancer spreading’ (20.7%) from the Supportive Care Needs Survey Short-Form 34 (SCNS-SF34), ranging from 9.4% for individuals ever diagnosed with haematological cancer to 36.3% for individuals ever diagnosed with gynaecological cancer, and ‘concerns about cancer coming back’ (17.9%) from the Cancer Survivors’ Unmet Needs (CaSUN), ranging from 9.7% for individuals ever diagnosed with prostate cancer to 37.8% for individuals ever diagnosed with breast cancer. Two studies assessed needs in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, reporting the highest needs for financial worries (21.1%). Conclusions: Point prevalence estimates presented here, combined with estimates of the costs and effects of potential interventions, can be used within economic evaluations to inform evidence-based local service provision to address the supportive care needs of individuals ever diagnosed with cancer. Implications for Cancer Survivors: Local health services can use local evidence to prioritise the implementation of interventions targeted at unmet needs.