Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: In Japan, the medical insurance system allows patients to receive affordable, advanced medical care, but the cancer incidence rate remains high due to the declining birthrate and aging population. The purpose of this study is to examine the costs and their impacts that should be included in HTA for the introduction of remote palliative care, which allows early intervention.
METHODS: Expenses that may have an impact on HTA are extracted separately for society, medical providers, and patients. Then, the variability and range of fluctuation of each expense is examined.
RESULTS: Assuming that an "online palliative care team fee" is recorded, the difference between this medical fee and the current medical expenses was cited as a social cost. Since there is a large difference with cases where the patient is hospitalized, it was considered effective to apply this to patients who are hospitalized from an early stage. Expenses on the medical provider side include the cost of introducing the online medical care system and the personnel costs of the team. Whether these can be covered by medical fees will affect the decision to introduce the service. To do this, appropriate setting of medical fees and the presence of many eligible patients are necessary, so the mutual impact with social costs is an issue. Expenses for patients included the time and transportation costs associated with commuting to the hospital, medical expenses, and the opportunity loss associated with family members accompanying patients. It was thought that the more these costs were reduced, the more willing patients would be to use the system.
CONCLUSIONS: Assuming there is no impact on patients' QALYs, our results suggest that remote palliative care could have a significant impact on the health economy in remote islands and other isolated areas with large elderly populations.