Social Return on Investment (SROI) Project of the Surgical Waiting List Management System

Abstract Background In Andalusia, the right to maximum waiting times for health care clashes with the available supply, leading to an increase in demand in the form of waiting lists. To cope with this situation, the activity of private centers has been created for certain diagnostic tests or surgical activities. Management, therefore, depends on these contracted private centers, which have to evaluate their offers in economic and healthcare terms, to be able to obtain the healthcare agreements. There are different methods of economic evaluation, based mainly on the economic and care aspects. The model based on social return on investment (SROI) allows us to evaluate an action both from the economic side and from the side of all the actors involved. However, there are no studies on the suitability of waiting lists using this model. Methods A cross-sectional and prospective design was carried out between April 2021 and March 2022. After meeting the inclusion criteria, 75 patients were surveyed in person to determine their gained quality of life and their social assessment, to analyze the social return on investment, and to determine the suitability of the intervention (concerted diagnostic endoscopy activity in a concerted center) from the point of view of the different stakeholders involved. Discussion In this first approach, the study protocol is presented. Subsequently, the economic, social, and environmental settings of the intervention of concerted activity to adjust endoscopy diagnostic waiting list times will be known. Also, the economic cost of the interventions of the health concerts and the Andalusian public health system about the intervention, the cost of the increase in extraordinary health resources, determine the most prevalent surgeries from highest to lowest and specify the highest number of surgeries that are established in the concerts and the Andalusian Public Health Service. Trial registration: 113.21 [Registry ID: CÁDIZ RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE