Cost-effectiveness of a Telemonitoring Program for Patients With Heart Failure During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hong Kong: Model Development and Data Analysis.
J Med Internet Res
; 23(3): e26516, 2021 03 03.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1115367
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused patients to avoid seeking medical care. Provision of telemonitoring programs in addition to usual care has demonstrated improved effectiveness in managing patients with heart failure (HF).OBJECTIVE:
We aimed to examine the potential clinical and health economic outcomes of a telemonitoring program for management of patients with HF during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of health care providers in Hong Kong.METHODS:
A Markov model was designed to compare the outcomes of a care under COVID-19 (CUC) group and a telemonitoring plus CUC group (telemonitoring group) in a hypothetical cohort of older patients with HF in Hong Kong. The model outcome measures were direct medical cost, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. Sensitivity analyses were performed to examine the model assumptions and the robustness of the base-case results.RESULTS:
In the base-case analysis, the telemonitoring group showed a higher QALY gain (1.9007) at a higher cost (US $15,888) compared to the CUC group (1.8345 QALYs at US $15,603). Adopting US $48,937/QALY (1 × the gross domestic product per capita of Hong Kong) as the willingness-to-pay threshold, telemonitoring was accepted as a highly cost-effective strategy, with an incremental cost-effective ratio of US $4292/QALY. No threshold value was identified in the deterministic sensitivity analysis. In the probabilistic sensitivity analysis, telemonitoring was accepted as cost-effective in 99.22% of 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations.CONCLUSIONS:
Compared to the current outpatient care alone under the COVID-19 pandemic, the addition of telemonitoring-mediated management to the current care for patients with HF appears to be a highly cost-effective strategy from the perspective of health care providers in Hong Kong.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Monte Carlo Method
/
Telemedicine
/
Ambulatory Care
/
Data Analysis
/
COVID-19
/
Heart Failure
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
J Med Internet Res
Journal subject:
Medical Informatics
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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