Pragmatic and Innovative Approaches to Evaluating Implementation Costs

Hannah Cheng, MS
Stanford University

Todd Wagner, PhD
Stanford University

ABSTRACT:
This presentation highlights practical and innovative approaches to economic evaluations in implementation endeavors. Part I provides an overview of Delivering Implementation Strategies Cost (DISCo), a pragmatic micro-costing tool that separates delivery and participation costs while outlining practical considerations for measuring implementation costs. Part II discusses economic evaluation approaches beyond traditional cost-effectiveness analysis, focusing on underused or novel approaches, such as data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis, budget impact analysis, and value-focused methods. The presentation equips researchers with a versatile economic toolkit to understand the value of implementation.