OBJECTIVES: to explore benefits, cost savings, and feasibility on the support of home ventilators for ventilator-dependent children under the UHC scheme in Thailand.

METHODS: The methodologies comprise both quantitative and qualitative approaches using cross-sectional and retrospective studies towards 65 cases in six tertiary care hospitals. Data collection were conducted from March to November 2017 in those selected hospitals.

RESULTS: the support of home ventilators for ventilator dependent children not only reduce resource consumption and expenditure of the hospitals, but also the household consumption and expenditure. Reduction in hospital expenditure in a medical school hospital ranges from 4.3 to 17.6 million Thai Baht per patient per year, or 0.36 to 1.46 million Thai Baht per patient per month. Approximately 71.4 percent of sample households also experienced cost saving from the transfer of patients from the hospitals to households. The reduction in household expenditure on average was 16,472 Thai Baht per month, ranging from the minimum of 1,700 THB to the maximum of 126,000 Thai Baht per patient per month. The assessment of health outcome shows no difference in the incidence of adverse events between hospital admission and using the ventilators at home. Data from the interviews with medical specialists and patient's parents indicate improvements in quality of life of both patients and parents. With the use of visual analog scale (VAS), approximately 78 percent of sample households reveal their QOL score higher than 80%, and around 21.5 percent of them scored their QOL as 100%.

CONCLUSIONS: The policy on supporting home ventilators for children patients would reduce hospital's expenditure, and household consumption expenditure, and improve quality of life of care givers and patients.