Conference article

Predicting cost-effectiveness of telehealthcare to patients with COPD: A feasibility study based on data from the TeleCare North cluster-randomized trial

Flemming Witt Udsen
Department of Health Science & Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Ole Hejlesen
Department of Health Science & Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

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Published in: Proceedings from The 16th Scandinavian Conference on Health Informatics 2018, Aalborg, Denmark August 28–29, 2018

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 151:4, p. 16-22

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Published: 2018-08-24

ISBN: 978-91-7685-213-2

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

International results have recently questioned the value of providing telehealthcare to all COPD patients. Results from the Danish TeleCare North trial nuanced the debate by concluding that telehealthcare would most likely only be cost-effective for patients in a subgroup of severe COPD. Machine-learning methods have been suggested as a strategy to target telehealthcare even better than clinical subgroups. Data from the TeleCare North trial was used to fit classification models in order to explore this feasibility. Three models were applied: a simple decision tree, logistic regression and a linear support vector machine. Results indicate that classification methods can be used to predict patient-level cost-effectiveness with a relatively high precision. With these methods, it is feasible to target telehealthcare even better in order to maximize survival and health-related quality of life while not overusing scarce health resources as argued by health economists and clinical advocates of rational medicine.

Keywords

Pattern Recognition, Automated/classification; Cost-Benefit Analysis, Telemedicine; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive, Denmark.

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