Is telehealthcare for heart failure patients cost-effective? An economic evaluation alongside the Danish TeleCare North heart failure trial.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of telehealthcare in heart failure patients as add-on to usual care. DESIGN: A cost-utility analysis was conducted from a public payer perspective alongside the randomised controlled TeleCare North trial. SETTING: The North Denmark Region, Denmark. PARTICIPANTS: The study included 274 heart failure patients with self-reported New York Heart Association class II-IV. INTERVENTIONS: Patients in the intervention group were provided with a Telekit consisting of a tablet, a digital blood pressure monitor, and a scale and were instructed to perform measurements one to two times a week. The responsibility of the education, instructions and monitoring of the heart failure (HF) patients was placed on municipality nurses trained in HF and telemonitoring. Both groups received usual care. OUTCOME MEASURES: Cost-effectiveness was reported as incremental net monetary benefit (NMB). A micro-costing approach was applied to evaluate the derived savings in the first year in the public health sector. Quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) gained were estimated using the EuroQol 5-Dimensions 5-Levels questionnaire at baseline and at a 1-year follow-up. RESULTS: Data for 274 patients were included in the main analysis. The telehealthcare solution provided a positive incremental NMB of £5164. The 1-year adjusted QALY difference between the telehealthcare solution and the usual care group was 0.0034 (95% CI: -0.0711 to 0.0780). The adjusted difference in costs was -£5096 (95% CI: -8736 to -1456) corresponding to a reduction in total healthcare costs by 35%. All sensitivity analyses showed the main results were robust. CONCLUSIONS: The TeleCare North solution for monitoring HF was highly cost-effective. There were significant cost savings on hospitalisations, primary care contacts and total costs. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02860013.

Cost-effectiveness of treatments for non-osteoarthritic knee pain conditions: A systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Knee pain is common in adolescents and adults and is associated with an increased risk of developing knee osteoarthritis. The aim of this systematic review was to gather and appraise the cost-effectiveness of treatment approaches for non-osteoarthritic knee pain conditions. METHOD: A systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines and registered on PROSPERO (CRD42016050683). The literature search was done in MEDLINE via PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, and the National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database. Study selection was carried out by two independent reviewers and data were extracted using a customized extraction form. Study quality was assessed using the Consensus on Health Economic Criteria list. RESULTS: Fifteen studies were included. The majority regarded the treatment of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, but we also identified studies evaluating other knee pain conditions such as meniscus injuries, cartilage defects, and patellofemoral pain syndrome. Study interventions were categorized as surgical or non-surgical interventions. The surgical interventions included ACL reconstruction, chondrocyte implantation, meniscus scaffold procedure, meniscal allograft transplantation, partial meniscectomy, microfracture, and different types of autografts and allografts. The non-surgical management consisted of physical therapy, rehabilitation, exercise, counselling, bracing, and advice. In general, for ACL injuries surgical management alone or in combination with rehabilitation appeared to be cost-effective. The quality of the economic evaluations was of moderate to high quality. CONCLUSION: There was insufficient evidence to give a firm overview of cost-effective interventions for non-osteoarthritic knee pain, but surgical treatment of acute ACL injury appeared cost-effective. There is very little data regarding the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical interventions for non-traumatic knee conditions.

The importance of mean time in therapeutic range for complication rates in warfarin therapy of patients with atrial fibrillation: A systematic review and meta-regression analysis.

BACKGROUND: \Anticoagulation is used for stroke prophylaxis in non-valvular atrial fibrillation, amongst other by use of the vitamin K antagonist, warfarin. Quality in warfarin therapy is often summarized by the time patients spend within the therapeutic range (percent time in therapeutic range, TTR). The correlation between TTR and the occurrence of complications during warfarin therapy has been established, but the influence of patient characteristics in that respect remains undetermined. The objective of the present papers was to examine the association between mean TTR and complication rates with adjustment for differences in relevant patient cohort characteristics. METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in MEDLINE and Embase (2005-2015) to identify eligible studies reporting on use of warfarin therapy by patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation and the occurrence of hemorrhage and thromboembolism. Both randomized controlled trials and observational cohort studies were included. The association between the reported mean TTR and major bleeding and stroke/systemic embolism was analyzed by random-effects meta-regression with and without adjustment for relevant clinical cohort characteristics. In the adjusted meta-regressions, the impact of mean TTR on the occurrence of hemorrhage was adjusted for the mean age and the proportion of populations with prior stroke or transient ischemic attack. In the adjusted analyses on thromboembolism, the proportion of females was, furthermore, included. RESULTS: Of 2169 papers, 35 papers met pre-specified inclusion criteria, holding relevant information on 31 patient cohorts. In univariable meta-regression, increasing mean TTR was significantly associated with a decreased rate of both major bleeding and stroke/systemic embolism. However, after adjustment mean TTR was no longer significantly associated with stroke/systemic embolism. The proportion of residual variance composed by between-study heterogeneity was substantial for all analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Although higher mean TTR in warfarin therapy was associated with lower complication rates in atrial fibrillation, the strength of the association was decreased when adjusting for differences in relevant clinical characteristics of the patient cohorts. This study suggests that mainly the safety of warfarin therapy increases with higher mean TTR, whereas effectiveness appears not to be substantially improved. Due to the limitations immanent in the meta-regression methods, the results of the present study should be interpreted with caution. Further research on the association between the quality of warfarin therapy and risk of complications is warranted with adjustment for clinically relevant characteristics.

Effect of Anticoagulation on Hospitalization Costs After Intracranial Hemorrhage in Atrial Fibrillation: A Registry Study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) is the most feared adverse event with oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with atrial fibrillation. The health economic aspects of resuming oral anticoagulant therapy after ICH are unknown. The aim was to estimate hospitalization costs of thromboembolism and hemorrhage subsequent to ICH in 2 patient groups with atrial fibrillation surviving the first 90 days post ICH: (1) patients resuming warfarin therapy within 90 days post ICH and (2) patients discontinuing therapy. METHODS: Retrospective data from Danish national registries were linked to identify patients with atrial fibrillation who suffered an ICH between January 1, 1997, and April 1, 2011. Study start was 90 days after incident ICH. Mortality was evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier estimate. Occurrence of hospitalization-requiring thromboembolism and hemorrhage was used to estimate hospitalization costs by linkage of International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, codes to Danish Diagnosis-Related Group tariffs. The effect of resuming warfarin therapy on average 3-year hospitalization costs was estimated by regression analysis adjusted for between-group differences in baseline characteristics. RESULTS: In the inclusion period, 2162 patients had an ICH; 1098 survived the first 90 days and were included for analysis, and of those, 267 resumed warfarin therapy. Therapy resumption reduced the mean 3-year hospitalization cost of hospitalized patients significantly by US$ 1588 (95% confidence interval, -2925 to -251) and was significantly correlated with fewer hospitalization days per hospitalized patient (-4.6 [95% confidence interval, -7.6 to -1.6]). The marginal effect of therapy resumption on hospitalization costs per patient was US$ -407 (95% confidence interval, -815 to 2). CONCLUSIONS: Resuming warfarin therapy within 90 days after ICH in patients with atrial fibrillation is associated with a decrease in average hospitalization costs.

A Health Economic Evaluation of Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation: Guideline Adherence Versus the Observed Treatment Strategy Prior to 2012 in Denmark.

BACKGROUND: In 2012 the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) published new guidelines on pharmacological stroke prophylaxis in non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF). The health economics of adhering to these guidelines in clinical practice remains to be elucidated. OBJECTIVE: This paper offers a health economic evaluation of two stroke-prophylactic treatment strategies: complete national adherence to the ESC guidelines on stroke prophylaxis in AF versus stroke-prophylactic treatment prior to 2012 in Denmark. METHODS: A cost-utility analysis was performed to compare two treatment strategies. The first strategy reflected national guideline adherence with the use of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (i.e. dabigatran etexilate), warfarin, and no treatment. The second strategy reflected observed stroke prophylaxis prior to 2012 with the utilization of warfarin, acetylsalicylic acid, and no treatment. A Danish health sector perspective was adopted. A Markov model was designed and populated with information on input parameters from the literature and local cost data reflecting 2014 values. A modeled patient cohort was constructed with a risk profile intended to reflect that of the Danish patient population with AF. The applied outcome was quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). RESULTS: The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio amounted to 3557 per QALY for the guideline-adherent treatment strategy (GTS) compared with the pre-2012 treatment strategy. This ratio is below a threshold of 25,000 (£20,000) per QALY. Sensitivity analyses revealed that the result was largely robust to changes in input parameters. All analyses found the GTS to be cost effective. CONCLUSIONS: Guideline adherence is a cost-effective treatment strategy compared with the strategy employed prior to 2012 for pharmacological stroke prophylaxis in AF.