T Swierk1, C Jürgens, R Grossjohann, S Flessa, F Tost. 1. Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Gesundheitsmanagement, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald, Deutschland.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Telemedical home monitoring of glaucoma patients is not covered by health insurance in Germany. Various clinical studies have indicated that 24 h monitoring of intraocular and blood pressure of glaucoma patients allows a better evaluation of the individual disease condition. If the necessary parameters can be collected with telemedical home monitoring it will be possible to reduce the number of 24 h intraocular pressure profiles which necessitate hospital admission. Therefore inpatient 24 h profiles have been chosen as a health economical allocation base with a presentable economical value for the comparative examination. Assuming an at least identical or even higher clinical outcome of the telemedical glaucoma home monitoring inpatient 24 h profiles were chosen as a health economical allocation base to compare and contrast these methods. METHODS: All procedures of the inpatient 24 h profiles at the ophthalmic clinic of Greifswald were measured using the stopwatch method. In a 1 day test run all activities of the medical staff were identified and documented in a list and afterwards measurements were carried out over 7 days with several stopwatches to allow the documentation of parallel activities. To determine the consumption of resources in telemedical home monitoring the self-documentation of all employees involved in the research project TT-MV were evaluated. Expert interviews helped to determine the economically relevant data about the applied medical technology, e.g. measuring devices, server and electronic health records. RESULTS: The number and complexity of the subprocesses of the inpatient 24 h intraocular pressure profiles were significantly higher compared to telemedical home monitoring. The total costs of the inpatient 24 h profiles were 571.21 € per patient including 291.21 € for medical care and 280 € for accommodation. In contrast the total costs of telemedical home monitoring were 288.72 € per patient. A direct cost comparison shows that telemedical home monitoring resulted in lower costs compared to hospital admission of glaucoma patients. CONCLUSION: Telemedical home monitoring of glaucoma patients is not only effective but also cost-efficient. As modern health care systems have to consider cost efficiency, a randomized, controlled longitudinal clinical study of both methods would be required.
BACKGROUND: Telemedical home monitoring of glaucomapatients is not covered by health insurance in Germany. Various clinical studies have indicated that 24 h monitoring of intraocular and blood pressure of glaucomapatients allows a better evaluation of the individual disease condition. If the necessary parameters can be collected with telemedical home monitoring it will be possible to reduce the number of 24 h intraocular pressure profiles which necessitate hospital admission. Therefore inpatient 24 h profiles have been chosen as a health economical allocation base with a presentable economical value for the comparative examination. Assuming an at least identical or even higher clinical outcome of the telemedical glaucoma home monitoring inpatient 24 h profiles were chosen as a health economical allocation base to compare and contrast these methods. METHODS: All procedures of the inpatient 24 h profiles at the ophthalmic clinic of Greifswald were measured using the stopwatch method. In a 1 day test run all activities of the medical staff were identified and documented in a list and afterwards measurements were carried out over 7 days with several stopwatches to allow the documentation of parallel activities. To determine the consumption of resources in telemedical home monitoring the self-documentation of all employees involved in the research project TT-MV were evaluated. Expert interviews helped to determine the economically relevant data about the applied medical technology, e.g. measuring devices, server and electronic health records. RESULTS: The number and complexity of the subprocesses of the inpatient 24 h intraocular pressure profiles were significantly higher compared to telemedical home monitoring. The total costs of the inpatient 24 h profiles were 571.21 € per patient including 291.21 € for medical care and 280 € for accommodation. In contrast the total costs of telemedical home monitoring were 288.72 € per patient. A direct cost comparison shows that telemedical home monitoring resulted in lower costs compared to hospital admission of glaucomapatients. CONCLUSION: Telemedical home monitoring of glaucomapatients is not only effective but also cost-efficient. As modern health care systems have to consider cost efficiency, a randomized, controlled longitudinal clinical study of both methods would be required.
Authors: Sera-Melisa Thomas; Maya M Jeyaraman; Maya Jeyaraman; William G Hodge; Cindy Hutnik; John Costella; Monali S Malvankar-Mehta Journal: PLoS One Date: 2014-12-05 Impact factor: 3.240