Cost-Effectiveness of Mobile Health-Based Integrated Care for Atrial Fibrillation: Model Development and Data Analysis

• Main Authors: Huang, C. (Author), Jiang, X. (Author), Lai, H. (Author), Luo, X. (Author), Ming, W.-K (Author), Xu, W. (Author), Yuan, Q. (Author), Zhong, X. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: NLM (Medline) 2022
• Subjects: ABC pathway; atrial fibrillation; Atrial Fibrillation; cost benefit analysis; Cost-Benefit Analysis; cost-effectiveness; data analysis; Data Analysis; Delivery of Health Care, Integrated; health economic evaluation; human; Humans; integrated care; integrated health care system; mobile health; model-based; quality adjusted life year; Quality-Adjusted Life Years; telemedicine; Telemedicine
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher
• ISBN: 14388871 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.2196/29408

BACKGROUND: Mobile health (mHealth) technology is increasingly used in disease management. Using mHealth tools to integrate and streamline care has improved clinical outcomes of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the potential clinical and health economic outcomes of mHealth-based integrated care for AF from the perspective of a public health care provider in China. METHODS: A Markov model was designed to compare outcomes of mHealth-based care and usual care in a hypothetical cohort of patients with AF in China. The time horizon was 30 years with monthly cycles. Model outcomes measured were direct medical cost, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Sensitivity analyses were performed to examine the robustness of the base-case results. RESULTS: In the base-case analysis, mHealth-based care gained higher QALYs of 0.0730 with an incurred cost of US