Cost projections
retinal disease
RETINAL DISEASE
To examine future cost consequences of task-shifting, we developed a simple model for projecting the number of injections per year for St. Olavs Hospital for the period 2022–27. For this purpose, the number of injections for 2014–21 was first obtained from the St. Olavs Hospital’s computer system (Nimes, LOGEX Healthcare Analytics, Oslo, Norway, 2022). For this period, we calculated the annual increase of injections per 1000 inhabitants in the St. Olavs population. We assumed this increase to represent an increase in the prevalence of retinal disease (patients per 1000 inhabitants) since injection per patient was presumed to be constant. The mean increase per year was 4.1%. Next, we used the number of injections administered in the StO-study to calculate age-group-specific injection prevalence for the year 2016, which is used as the reference year because this was the mid-year of the StO-study. We used five-year age groups from 30–89 years and 10-year from 90–99.Population numbers and projections from Statistics Norway [To calculate potential hospital cost savings, the number of injections in 2014–27 was multiplied by the difference in the hospital cost per injection between physicians and nurses, respectively.