A nursing process model: quantifying infusion therapy resource consumption.

Comprehensive measurement of the effort associated with a procedure, treatment, or project involves a myriad of planned observations and analyses. When accurately synthesized, these measurements show the amount of resources or the level of effort required for the intervention. In an era of unprecedented healthcare cost scrutiny, it is imperative for clinicians to understand and apply these components and methods to program development, budget management, staffing, and cost-to-outcome analysis. Through a series of on-site observations and interviews at in-office infusion centers providing a nonchemotherapeutic biologic therapy, specifically infliximab (Remicade), the investigators were able to isolate and assign value to the multiple factors that contribute to the cost of this procedure. The investigators also were able to establish a process model for clinicians who are inevitably involved in the "business" of healthcare.