IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

A new study by British researchers suggests that the next big thing in healthcare – ‘telehealth’ might not be worth its high expenses. These findings will surely fuel controversy over the economic case of telehealth which many IT companies are getting into. Martin Knapp, professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, one of the leaders of the study, said the disappointing results did not mean telehealth was a waste of time but did suggest it needed to be better targeted. In some cases, technology might help improve the outcome but the services need to be modified to suit the patients. ‘We have got to find ways of better adjusting the equipment to suit the circumstances of the individual patient,’ he said ‘Just at the moment we don’t find the advantage that people had hoped for.’

Knapp and his colleagues tested the cost-effectiveness of telehealth with standard care for 12 month in 965 patients with three different conditions – heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or diabetes. Just over half the patients received equipment to allow them to measure things like blood pressure and blood glucose levels at home. They then transmitted their readings electronically to a healthcare professional.

The researchers found that the cost per quality adjusted life (QALY) – a standard way to measure the quality and quantity of life – was 92,000 pounds way above the 30,000 pounds that Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) uses as a benchmark to assess the whether medical interventions are useful when used as a state-run health service. ‘Telehealth does not seem to be a cost effective addition to standard support and treatment,’ the study authors concluded in their report in the British Medical Journal on Friday.

British health minister Jeremy Hunt cited encouraging results from the programme last November when he announced plans to roll out telehealth to 100,000 people with long-term conditions in 2013 and have 3 million on the system by 2017. Hunt’s plan will make Britain second only to the United States as an adopter of technology to monitor patients at home and the UK department of health have claimed it could save up to 1.2 billion pounds over five years.

But several medical experts have questioned whether the programme really shows that telehealth improves quality of life and Knapp said the savings being forecast were ‘optimistic’.

Many companies, from medical equipment firms to developers of smartphone apps, are already vying for a piece of a market that has been talked about for 20 years but is now finally gaining traction. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers the worldwide market for mobile communications and devices used in healthcare will reach about $23 billion by 2017, up from $4.5 billion forecast for 2013. Telecom network operators will be the biggest winners, grabbing roughly half of those sales, which explain the growing focus of companies like Telefonica on healthcare. The balance will be shared by a raft of other players, such as General Electric, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Philips and Siemens.

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Quelle/Source: Health.India.Com, 22.03.2013

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