We found that substantial evidence exists for achieving cost savings and efficiency improvements from task shifting activities related to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS , and additional evidence exists for the potential to achieve cost savings from activities related to malaria , NCDs , NTDs , childhood illness , and other disease areas , especially at the primary health care and community levels .
Conclusions Task shifting presents a viable option for health system cost savings in LMICs .
Background Task shifting has become an increasingly popular way to increase access to health services , especially in low-re source setting s. Research has demonstrated that task shifting , including the use of community health workers ( CHWs ) to deliver care , can improve population health .
This systematic review investigates whether task shifting in low-income and middle-income countries ( LMICs ) results in efficiency improvements by achieving cost savings .
Cost of delivering child health care through community level health workers: how much extra does IMNCI program cost?
BACKGROUND AND METHODS In the setting of a cluster r and omized study to assess impact of the  Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses ( IMNCI ) program in the district of Faridabad in India , we r and omly selected auxiliary nurse midwives ( ANM ) , anganwadi workers ( AWW ) and accredited social health activists ( ASHA ) from intervention and control areas to collect cost data using an economic perspective . Bootstrap method was used to estimate 95 % confidence interval . RESULTS The annual per-child cost of providing health services through an ANM , AWW and ASHA is INR 348 ( USD 7.7 ) , INR 588 ( USD 13.1 ) and INR 87 ( USD 1.9 ) , respectively . The annual per-child incremental cost of delivering IMNCI is INR 124.8 ( USD 2.77 ) , INR 26 ( USD 0.6 ) and INR 31 ( USD 0.7 ) at the ANM , AWW and ASHA level , respectively . CONCLUSION Implementation of IMNCI imposes additional costs to the health system . A comprehensive economic evaluation of the IMNCI is imperative to estimate the net cost implication s in India
We found that substantial evidence exists for achieving cost savings and efficiency improvements from task shifting activities related to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS , and additional evidence exists for the potential to achieve cost savings from activities related to malaria , NCDs , NTDs , childhood illness , and other disease areas , especially at the primary health care and community levels .
Conclusions Task shifting presents a viable option for health system cost savings in LMICs .
Background Task shifting has become an increasingly popular way to increase access to health services , especially in low-re source setting s. Research has demonstrated that task shifting , including the use of community health workers ( CHWs ) to deliver care , can improve population health .
This systematic review investigates whether task shifting in low-income and middle-income countries ( LMICs ) results in efficiency improvements by achieving cost savings .