Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Remote Monitoring in Patients with Diabetes Type 2

This study aimed to investigate the economic evaluation of remote monitoring of type 2 diabetic patients for controlling glycosylated hemoglobin compared to routine care for type 2 diabetics.

Economic evaluation was carried out to calculate the unit cost of the remote monitoring technology and the routine treatment for type 2 diabetics, incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, and sensitivity analysis using the key variables such as population size and cost items (in five categories of equipment and devices, building, staff, overhead costs, and consumables costs).

Considering the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in the base-case model and in comparison with routine treatment of type 2 diabetes, remote type 2 diabetes monitoring system was placed in the second quarter (more effective and affordable technology) of the graph as the most dominant alternative (RPM vs. Routine care: Total annual cost difference: -38476.477 US$ / “Unit- reduction in HbA1C” difference: 0.488).  The results of the sensitivity analysis revealed that in all scenarios, RPM was dominant compared to the routine treatment (The optimum ICER: -610.128 US$ per “Unit reduction in HbA1C” for the scenario with A 10% increase in the costs of the control and intervention group).

Remote patient monitoring is a dominant alternative compared to routine treatment. Results indicated that remote type 2 diabetes monitoring interventions play an effective role in reducing HbA1c, which may be considered the rationale for policymakers to use this technology.