Modelled Heath Economic Benefits of A “Real Life” Computer Guided Review In COPD

E.B. Thompson, M.G. Pearson, L. Davies, A. Trusdale, E. McKnight, K. Sergeant, R.M. Angus. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2013;187: A4379

The study reports on the health economic impact of implementing the LungHealth COPD guided consultation in 417 patients across 13 General Practices.

What did the study report? 

The implementation of the LungHealth COPD guided consultation results in significant cost savings due to the removal from the COPD register of those patients who had been misdiagnosed as having COPD.

Review of the 417 patients with the guided consultation resulted in 18% of those patients not having a diagnosis of COPD when spirometry was performed as part of the consultation. These patients would have been removed from the COPD register and inhaled medications normally prescribed for a diagnosis of COPD would have been stopped. This would have resulted in a saving of £23,000 in terms of patient appointments for future COPD reviews and £226,000 in terms of discontinuing COPD medications. Smaller cost savings were discovered due to the software correctly recognising and referring suitable candidates for pulmonary rehabilitation.

Read the abstract here.