Acute coronary syndrome: What is the cost-effectiveness of prevention, point-of-care technology and telemonitoring?

This study is a cost-analysis that calculates the impact of three interventions for patients identified as 'at risk' for Acute Coronary Syndrome - a cardio-vascular exercise programme, point-of-care digital diagnostics, and telemonitoring adherence tools. The methodology utilizes a model of the annualized costs of ACS for the entire treatment value chain, and measures the impact of the three interventions by the change in treatment cost, incremental net benefit, and QALY. The results demonstrate that the largest impact is measured when all three interventions are utilized simultaneously producing a cumulative savings of 4424 and 0.126 QALY per patient. We also find a significant decrease in Emergency Room visits by 15% and changes in rates of utilization of Catharization (-59%), Angioplasty (-59%), Bypass (-17%), Medication (-14%) and Rehabilitation (-13%). (C) 2012 Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.