Study Reveals Telemonitoring Provides 3-To-1 ROI For Your Healthcare IT Clients

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

A Geisinger Health Plan (GHP) study has revealed that telemonitoring not only has the potential to create significant reductions in admissions across the board, but that it also can impact cost of care, with an estimated ROI of 3.3.

Claims

Geisinger Health Plan implemented its telemonitoring system in 2008, and specifically targeted members with heart failure for this study. The study aims to assess the impact of the telemonitoring program on these patients by measuring all-cause hospital admission rates, readmission rates, and total cost of care. The findings of the study imply that telemonitoring is an effective add-on tool, especially for facilities that manage elderly patients.

Methodology

The study covered 70 months and was conducted by tracking 541 elderly patients with heart failure. Participants in the study had high prevalence of co-morbid conditions and were expensive to treat. All patients were enrolled in the GHP Medicare Advantage plan. The program used Advanced Monitored Caregiving Bluetooth scales with an IVR (interactive voice response) system.

The study also used a fixed-effects model, measuring each participant only against his or her own baselines, to remove variation on the basis of factors such as sex, race, and any underlying health conditions that may not have been observed by the study data.

Results

The findings of the study suggest that GHP’s use of telemonitoring for its members was associated with reductions in hospital admission and readmission rates, which in turn resulted in a cost savings of $216 (11 percent) per patient per month, and a return on investment of 3.3.

GHP’s program was implemented as an add-on resource to its existing case management infrastructure, and was not installed as a stand-alone program specific for its heart failure members.

The results of the study fly in direct opposition to previous studies around the effects of telemonitoring of elderly patients. The study author addresses this point, highlighting the fact that, especially when studying patients with heart failure, co-morbidities cause inherent difficulties in isolating true measurement of telemonitoring effects on patient outcomes. It also acknowledges that the benefits revealed in the study might not be specifically associated with the intensity of home monitoring, but more so with improvements of the patient adhering to instructions around weight control, diet, and medications.

The full study can be accessed here, and more articles on telehealth and telemonitoring can be accessed here.