Can costs of screening for hypertension and diabetes in dental care and follow-up in primary health care be predicted?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flow chart displaying the number of participants in the screening process from dental care (DC) to the follow-up in primary health care (PHC).

Table I. Financial characteristics. All costs are given in euros.

	Dental care	Primary health care
	Dental hygienist	Nurse	GP
Costs per minute	0.29	0.29	0.67
Employer tax, %	43	43	43
Overhead costs, %	50	36	36
Total minute cost	0.62	0.56	1.30
Costs per blood glucose analysis	0.64	0.64	–

Table II. Resource use in terms of time (minutes) and costs (€) in blood pressure and blood glucose screening.

	BPS regardless of BGS	BGS regardless of BPS	BGS (restricted screening pop)	BPS only	BGS only	BPS + BGS combined
Screening
Number screened	1,149	1,568	766	55	475	1,093
Adjusted screening time per screened	12	12	12	12	12	13.8
Total time for screening	13,788	18,816	9,192	660	5,700	15,083
Total analysis costs	0	1,004	490	0	304	700
Total screening costs	8,549	12,669	6,189	409	3,838	10,052
Total screening cost per screened	7.44	8.08	8.08	7.44	8.08	9.20
Follow-up
Number followed up	237	155	97	5	37	291
Adjusted follow-up time per subject	30.8	15.4	15.4	30.8	15.4	30.8
Total nurse time	21,899	4,774	2,988	462	1,140	22,823
Total GP time	7,110	4,650	2,910	150	1,110	8,730
Total analysis costs	0	198.40	124.16	0	47,4	140
Total follow-up costs per subject	91	58	58	91	57	83
Number of subjects with diagnosis found	76	9	9	1	4	80
Numbers needed to screen (NNS)	18	196	96	55	119	15
Total resource use per screened
Total time used	25.2	18.0	19.7	23.1	16.7	42.7
Analysis costs	0	0.77	0.80	0	0.74	0.77
Total resource use per diagnosed subject
Total time used	563	3,137	1,677	1,272	1,988	583

BPS = blood pressure screening; BGS = blood glucose screening.

Figure 2. Relationship between numbers needed to screen (NNS) to find one case ending up with a diagnosis, and resources needed in the form of nurse/dental hygienist time, GP time, and total nurse-dental hygienist-GP time. Solid lines indicate results based on screening for blood pressure only, blood glucose only, or combined screening. Symbols with no line indicate results based on other subgroups (cf. Table II).