gms | German Medical Science

Deutscher Kongress für Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie (DKOU 2017)

24.10. - 27.10.2017, Berlin

Economic analysis of a mHealth system for hip and knee arthroplasty

Meeting Abstract

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  • presenting/speaker Christos Koutras - Fachklinik 360 Grad: Klinik für Orthopädie und Rheumatologie, Ratingen, Germany
  • Marina Bitsaki - Research and Innovation Department, OpenIT, Heraklion, Germany
  • George Koutras - Research and Innovation Department, OpenIT, Heraklion, Germany
  • Hansjörg Heep - Fachklinik 360 Grad: Klinik für Orthopädie und Rheumatologie, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Ratingen, Germany

Deutscher Kongress für Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie (DKOU 2017). Berlin, 24.-27.10.2017. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2017. DocIN25-233

doi: 10.3205/17dkou044, urn:nbn:de:0183-17dkou0440

Veröffentlicht: 23. Oktober 2017

© 2017 Koutras et al.
Dieser Artikel ist ein Open-Access-Artikel und steht unter den Lizenzbedingungen der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (Namensnennung). Lizenz-Angaben siehe http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Gliederung

Text

Objectives: The current study aims to apply a mobile based healthcare system that provides a health service for the follow-up of arthroplasty patients reducing healthcare costs, time required by the patient, and resource use.

Methods: We propose a mobile Health system that provides follow-up controls for primary arthroplasty patients through questions about symptoms in the replaced joint, questionnaires (the WOMAC and SF-36v2) and the radiological examination of knee or hip joint. The proposed system uses a combination of cloud and service-oriented computing, online services, data analysis, and m-health applications to connect patients to their physicians. We perform the analysis from the perspective of the insurance company. The estimations are based on input taken by primary hip (n=232) and knee (n=191) replacement surgeries performed in our clinic per year. We have estimated healthcare and travel costs per patient (per year) for the case of using the mobile based healthcare system and the case of using the traditional way of supporting follow-up for arthroplasty patients without using our services. The follow-up assessments that are associated to our data were performed by the surgeon in our clinic or by orthopedic surgeon (private practice) at the first year postoperatively and biannually thereafter for the lifetime of the prostheses.

Results and Conclusion: The total gain in cost for all the patients of our study due to the use of the mobile Health platform is estimated to be 13,578 euros per year. The cost reduction for various values of the readmission rate was calculated. For readmission rate of 5% the cost reduction reaches the percentage of 63.67% of the standard healthcare total cost of all patients of hip and knee replacement. The estimation of healthcare costs shows significant cost savings in our clinic.

This study proposes the development of a mobile Health platform to improve the quality of life of major joint arthroplasty patients through evaluation of diagnosis, self-monitoring and regular review of the condition of their health status after total hip or total knee replacement. The proposed methodology and platform, as well as the associated mobile apps, are demonstrably cost effective and commercially sustainable and is expected to significantly reduce the cost of follow-up assessments, the time spent and the number of hospital visits.