Cost-IS

Cost-IS estimates the cost of implementation strategies for digital health innovations and enables data collection and comparison of costs across different case studies.

Key Features:

• Cost Estimation: Cost-IS estimates the cost of implementation strategies associated with the introduction of healthcare interventions.
• Cross-Case Comparison: Cost-IS enables comparisons of cost estimates of implementation strategies between multiple real-world implementation case studies.
• Data Collection: Cost-IS facilitates data collection on implementation-related resource use throughout implementation projects.
• Adaptability: Cost-IS can be tailored to meet the requirements of a range of implementation projects, with adaptations made to improve data capture granularity, meaningfully categorise data, and enhance flexibility for analysis.
• Labour Cost Identification: Cost-IS identifies labour as the primary component of implementation costs.

Scientific Applications:

• Implementation Science Research: Cost-IS standardises the cost estimation of implementation strategies for digital health innovations.
• Healthcare Intervention Evaluation: Cost-IS supports reporting and evaluating implementation cost findings customised to project context.
• Resource Use Analysis: Cost-IS captures tangible resources used in implementation projects, though it is limited to costing implementation strategies rather than intervention costs or research-related costs.

Methodology:

Cost-IS was developed as an instrument for data collection and cost estimation of implementation strategies. The tool was applied through an evaluative and descriptive collective case study approach, with implementation data separately analysed for each case study and adaptations made where appropriate to improve data capture granularity and categorisation. Feedback on outputs was obtained from project leads via questionnaires.