Economic impact and cost savings of teledermatology units compared to conventional monitoring at hospitals in southern Spain
Por:
Lopez-Villegas A, Bautista-Mesa RJ, Baena-Lopez MA, Alvarez-Moreno ML, Montoro-Robles JE, Vega-Ramirez FA, Ordoñez-Naranjo I, Hernandez-Montoya CJ, Leal-Costa C and Peiro S
Publicada:
1 jul 2022
Ahead of Print:
1 jul 2020
Categoría:
Health informatics
Resumen:
Introduction Asynchronous teledermatology (TD) has undergone exponential growth in the past decade, allowing better diagnosis. Moreover, it saves both cost and time and reduces the number of visits involving travel and opportunity cost of time spent on visits to the hospital. The present study performed a cost-saving analysis of TD units and assessed whether they offered a cheaper alternative to conventional monitoring (CM) in hospitals from the perspective of public health-care systems (PHS) and patients. Methods This study was a retrospective assessment of 7030 patients. A cost-saving analysis comparing TD units to CM for patients at the Hospital de Poniente was performed over a period of one year. The TD network covered the Hospital de Poniente reference area (Spain) linked to 37 primary care (PC) centres that belonged to the Poniente Health District of Almeria. Results We observed a significant cost saving for TD units compared to participants in the conventional follow-up group. From the perspective of a PHS, there was a cost saving of 31.68% in the TD group (euro18.59 TD vs. euro27.20 CM) during the follow-up period. The number of CM visits to the hospital reduced by 38.14%. From the patients' perspective, the costs were lower, and the cost saving was 73.53% (euro5.45 TD vs. euro20.58 CM). Discussion The cost-saving analysis showed that the TD units appeared to be significantly cheaper compared to CM.
Filiaciones:
Lopez-Villegas A:
Social Involvement of Critical and Emergency Medicine, CTS-609 Research Group, Hospital de Poniente, Spain
Bautista-Mesa RJ:
Management Unit, Hospital de Poniente, Spain
Baena-Lopez MA:
Medical Deputy, Hospital de Poniente, Spain
Alvarez-Moreno ML:
Internal Medicine, Hospital de Poniente, Spain
Montoro-Robles JE:
Poniente Primary Care District, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Hum-498 Research Group, Spain
Vega-Ramirez FA:
Poniente Primary Care District, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Hum-498 Research Group, Spain
Ordoñez-Naranjo I:
Poniente Primary Care District, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Hum-498 Research Group, Spain
Hernandez-Montoya CJ:
Dermatology Unit, Hospital de Poniente, Spain
Leal-Costa C:
Nursing Department, University of Murcia, Spain
:
Health Services Research Unit, FISABIO-Public Health, Spain
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