Using preventive home monitoring to reduce hospital admission rates and reduce costs: a case study of telehealth among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

We studied whether preventive home monitoring of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) could reduce the frequency of hospital admissions and lower the cost of hospitalization. Patients were recruited from a health centre, general practitioner (GP) or the pulmonary hospital ward. They were randomized to usual care or tele-rehabilitation with a telehealth monitoring device installed in their home for four months. A total of 111 patients were suitable for inclusion and consented to be randomized: 60 patients were allocated to intervention and three were lost to follow-up. In the control group 51 patients were allocated to usual care and three patients were lost to follow-up. In the tele-rehabilitation group, the mean hospital admission rate was 0.49 per patient per 10 months compared to the control group rate of 1.17; this difference was significant (P = 0.041). The mean cost of admissions was €3461 per patient in the intervention group and €4576 in the control group; this difference was not significant. The Kaplan-Meier estimates for time to hospital admission were longer for the intervention group than the controls, but the difference was not significant. Future work requires large-scale studies of prolonged home monitoring with more extended follow-up.