Estimation and prediction for cost of health management service among community children in Shenzhen city

Objective To estimate the cost of health management service to community children and to provide references for financial support policy on community child health management service.Methods An index database was set up with literature review and panel discussion;the items and procedures of standardized basic public health service were determined with a two-round Delphi method.Then 60 community health centers in Shenzhen municipality were sampled with stratified random sampling and surveyed on time and quantity of health care for children in 2013.Results The community child health management service included 3 aspects, 15 items, and 58 procedures.The adjusted total working hours spent on child health management service were 78646.9 for the 60 community health centers in 2013, with the total annual manpower costs of 6.518, 6.597, 7.383, and 8.461 millions Yuan RMB and the average annual cost per child of 6.2, 6.2, 7.0, and 8.0 Yuan RMB, respectively, estimated based on salary levels of health workers and material and operational cost in the 60 community health centers surveyed, all community health centers in the city, all grass-roots medical institutions in the city, and on the level and cost recommended by the experts;the estimated annual individual cost of standardized health management for a small child of 0-3 years old was 134.1, 135.7, 151.9, and 174.1 Yuan RMB and the overall cost for children health management service accounted for 9.2%of total cost of basic public health service.Based on the estimations of the study, the predicted average costs of nationally-standardized health management service for one community child in 2015 would be 10.4, 10.6, 11.8, and 13.5 Yuan RMB, and the total annual cost would be about 100 millions Yuan RMB.Conclusion The cost of community health management service per child was 6.2 Yuan and higher than the standard of governmental financial support in 2013, suggesting governmental support to child health management needs to be increased to 10.0 Yuan per child in 2015.