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CAPC's Impact Calculator can help you estimate how a palliative care program can provide financial savings for your institution. You can use the information generated by the calculator to build administrative support for your program.

This Basic Impact Calculator gives you a quick look at the estimated overall cost savings and LOS reductions that a palliative care program can bring to your institution. Fill in the core hospital data to immediately see the potential benefits of palliative care.

For more detailed information, try the Advanced Impact Calculator free of charge. With a little more hospital data, you can use this to estimate measures such as:

Cost per day savings
Direct costs
Estimated cost savings after referral to the palliative care program

What financial impact might palliative care have in your hospital?

An Impact Calculator. An estimate of patient referral volume will be needed not only to calculate potential savings but also to model staffing requirements. What we provide here is a quick calculator to estimate the volume and financial impact of establishing a palliative care program.

While the resulting calculations are not predictive, they are representative of results that other programs have experienced.

These calculations also do not set either an upper or lower limit to program performance; they are simply a starting point which can be further refined, based upon your own assumptions and experience.

Enter your own hospital statistics into the spaces provided. These statistics should be available from your hospital finance staff. For any items without data available, consider basing your estimates on the national averages provided.

Click the 'Calculate' button when finished.

HINTS

Average length of stay in days for your hospital (overall)

National average is approximately 4.6 - 4.8 days

Average total cost per day (hospital-wide)

Range is usually $900 - $1800, depending on costs and methodology.

Number of staffed beds in your hospital

Note that the number of staffed beds is often less than the number of licensed beds

Average hospital "occupancy rate"

75% and higher is "pretty full" because key beds and services are full on certain days of the week.

Total discharges per year for your hospital

=	Staffed beds x Occupancy rate x 365 days
=	ALOS

Estimated deaths per year in your hospital

National average (assuming average patient mix) is 2.5% - 2.7% of discharges.