Journal article
Paediatric palliative care by video consultation at home: a cost minimisation analysis
BMC Health Services Research, Vol.14, 328
2014
Abstract
Background: In the vast state of Queensland, Australia, access to specialist paediatric services are only available in the capital city of Brisbane, and are limited in regional and remote locations. During home-based palliative care, it is not always desirable or practical to move a patient to attend appointments, and so access to care may be even further limited. To address these problems, at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) in Brisbane, a Home Telehealth Program (HTP) has been successfully established to provide palliative care consultations to families throughout Queensland. Methods: A cost minimisation analysis was undertaken to compare the actual costs of the HTP consultations, with the estimated potential costs associated with face-to face-consultations occurring by either i) hospital based consultations in the outpatients department at the RCH, or ii) home visits from the Paediatric Palliative Care Service. The analysis was undertaken from the perspective of the Children's Health Service. The analysis was based on data from 95 home video consultations which occurred over a two year period, and included costs associated with projected: clinician time and travel; costs reimbursed to families for travel through the Patients Travel Subsidy (PTS) scheme; hospital outpatient clinic costs, project co-ordination and equipment and infrastructure costs. The mean costs per consultation were calculated for each approach. Results: Air travel (n = 24) significantly affected the results. The mean cost of the HTP intervention was $294 and required no travel. The estimated mean cost per consultation in the hospital outpatient department was $748. The mean cost of home visits per consultation was $1214. Video consultation in the home is the most economical method of providing a consultation. The largest costs avoided to the health service are those associated with clinician time required for travel and the PTS scheme. Conclusion: While face-to-face consultations are the gold standard of care, for families located at a distance from the hospital, video consultation in the home presents an effective and cost efficient method to deliver a consultation. Additionally video consultation in the home ensures equity of access to services and minimum disruption to hospital based palliative care teams.
Details
- Title
- Paediatric palliative care by video consultation at home: a cost minimisation analysis
- Authors
- Natalie K Bradford (Author) - University of QueenslandNigel R Armfield (Author) - University of QueenslandJeanine Young (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringAnthony C Smith (Author) - University of Queensland
- Publication details
- BMC Health Services Research, Vol.14, 328; 18
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
- Date published
- 2014
- DOI
- 10.1186/1472-6963-14-328
- ISSN
- 1472-6963
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2014 Bradford, Armfield, etal ; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This published version is reproduced in accordance with this policy.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health - Nursing; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99449053002621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
43 File views/ downloads
673 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Health Care Sciences & Services
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites