hey Krys,

quantifying the benefits of telemedicine is quite complicated and in most cases, you can only estimate.

1) do you expect additional patients seeking care through telemedicine that otherwise wouldn´t?

2) Do you charge the same fee for telemedicine vs. in-person?

3) Telemedicine can improve the efficiency at your facility (e.g. more patients can be seen in an hour because the provider does not have to move around rooms)

these are points to think about when making an estimate.

Hi Kris,

I would recommend looking for cost benefits of preventing avoidable admissions for the same patients. A heart disease is of that nature that it is sometimes difficult to decide to visit doctor until a severe condition comes. If you switch telemedicine on, you ease consulting, so you add cost of tele-consulting and (in some percentage) eliminate urgent admissions, which cost a lot.

To do a cost-benefit analysis of a telehealth program is not much different from doing cost-benefit analysis of other types of health care interventions.

You need a clinical study with an intervention group and a control group that you can follow and collect data from. Then you need to collect data on the total cost of the telehealth intervention including investments, training, time by the clinical staff ect. You also need to assess change in costs related to the patients use of health care and transportation.

If the study shold be consistent with welfare economic theory, you also need to estimate the value of the telehealth service for the patients of the citizens. This is difficult, but it can be estimated as the patients or the citizens willingness to pay for the services, e.g. by use of an interview study. The results will always be very uncertain, but if you expect patients to have strong preferences for a services, you can use their willingness to pay as a way to illustrate these preferences.

You can find information about how to do a cost benefit analysis in the Drummond et al. handbook on health economic evaluation: https://www.bookdepository.com/Methods-for-the-Economic-Evaluation-of-Health-Care-Programmes-Michael-F.-Drummond/9780199665884?redirected=true&utm_medium=Google&utm_campaign=Base1&utm_source=DK&utm_content=Methods-for-the-Economic-Evaluation-of-Health-Care-Programmes&selectCurrency=DKK&w=AF4ZAU99VZBZQXA8VCXS&gclid=CjwKCAjwkoz7BRBPEiwAeKw3q6HROU3IHVGPOnYwkzDgoq4wG53KD3wzdsfOfB9V-9DTNymSOF-8fxoCeIoQAvD_BwE

Regards,

Kristian