PCAI for public urology clinics gives lower costs, freed-up capacity and better patient safety
An avoided prostatectomy saves SEK 80,000–120,000. PCAI supports the right treatment decisions, frees capacity and strengthens the link to national care goals.
The public clinic is driven by patient safety, efficient use of resources and political responsibility for the right care at the right level. PCAI addresses all three.
1. Economics – lower costs within a given budget
Avoided operations save money directly: One avoided radical prostatectomy saves SEK 80,000–120,000 in direct care costs – surgery, anaesthesia, inpatient time and follow-up.
Reduced long-term costs: Incontinence and impotence after unnecessary surgery generate follow-up costs over several years – assistive devices, return visits and rehabilitation. PCAI reduces that burden by making the basis for the decision more precise.
Arguments that reach the regional health authority: Cost reduction resonates with the leadership of the regional health authority and with health economists – the key to budget approval. Because the service is ordered by the patient today, no procurement process is required to get started – read more about implementation Implementation.
2. Time – freed-up capacity
Less frequent monitoring schedules: Patients with confirmed low aggressiveness can be followed at longer intervals, which frees up outpatient capacity. Read about the trade-off between surveillance and surgery Surveillance vs. surgery.
Fewer post-operative complications: Every unnecessary operation that is avoided frees up doctor and nurse time that would otherwise go to aftercare.
More efficient MDT meetings: A reproducible index gives a faster basis for decisions in multidisciplinary teams, particularly in the borderline cases where assessments diverge because of the limitations of the Gleason method Limitations of the Gleason method.
SEK 80,000–120,000
direct care cost saved per avoided radical prostatectomy
Sales argument material, clinics
25,591
patients in the study behind PCAI, followed for up to 23 years
MIA 2025
1–100
reproducible index across seven risk levels, against the Gleason scale's 1–5
3. Quality – a link to national healthcare goals
National guidelines: A direct link to the goal set by the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) of the right care at the right level.
Less patient suffering: Avoiding unnecessary surgery with its risk of impotence and incontinence is a strong ethical and political argument – and it is what patients themselves value most highly.
Support for the pathologist: In difficult borderline cases, PCAI reduces the individual responsibility by giving a second, reproducible assessment of the same tissue sample. The evidence behind the method is in our clinical results.
Academic value: An opportunity for publications and clinical studies in collaboration with Spearpoint.
4. Regulatory position – no risk for the clinic
The service is offered today as a second opinion directly to the patient – read what a second opinion means. The clinic carries no regulatory responsibility, and the department can evaluate the benefit case by case before an integrated workflow is discussed.
| Public clinic | |
|---|---|
| Economics | Fewer unnecessary operations = lower cost + reduced long-term costs |
| Time | Freed-up outpatient and surgical capacity |
| Quality | Patient safety + national healthcare goals + academic value |
| Regulatory risk | None – the patient orders the service |
Next steps
A walkthrough can be arranged with no preparation on your part. We go through how many of your patients end up in the borderline cases, what a more precise basis for decisions would mean for surgical volumes and how an evaluation could be set up – as a second opinion in individual cases, or later in an integrated workflow once IVDR approval is in place. This is how implementation works.
Discuss PCAI for your clinic or region
We go through patient flow, health economics and how the analysis can be used without a procurement process.
Related: Implementation · Private clinics · Clinical results