Costs of drug treatment in digital platforms: Systematic review of literature of bottom-up approaches

The paper proposes a plan for introducing digital transformation into the estimates of the spending on drug-related healthcare, by identify the models currently available in scientific literature to make bottom-up estimates of the costs of providing treatment to substance abuse. The authors performed a scientific review of the literature, complemented with the snowball method, and applied a qualitative method of content analysis. Authors do not rule out the possibility that additional cost calculation tools may exist because many methods are published in grey literature by public or private entities in charge of monitoring drug treatment. These studies are not always possible to capture in scientific reviews of the literature. Finally, the paper contributes to set the theoretical framework required to apply methods to estimate the costs of providing substance health care, in a digital context.