Hochstein A, Limacher JJ; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.
Abstr Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1992; 14.
Concordia University, Montreal, PQ, Canada.
Reducing institutionalization has long been hailed as a method of cost containment. Even when the cost of home care approaches that of hospital care, there is little doubt that there are substantial social and psychological benefits in maintaining the elderly in their homes as long as possible. The use of a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) supports such independent living by ensuring the ready availability of emergency system. A PERS is an electronic system whereby the user can summon help at any time by activating a communication device which automatically telephones a designated center where an operator will respond and dispatch help as needed. Although this technology has existed for about two decades, there is surprisingly little literature on the success or failure of such a system. This case study examines the initial five years of operation (1986-1991) of a hospital based PERS system in Cornwall, Ontario. All 169 current and former subscribers are included in the study. Demographic data indicate the heaviest use is by women in the 70 - 89 age group who have a well-developed informal support network. Typical users remain with the system up to two years, but true emergencies make up only a small proportion (less than 5%) of requests for help. Once PERS is operating, the incremental cost of a call is very small. High fixed costs and low variable costs underscore the importance of economies of scale; the more subscribers there are, the less costly is each call. Own price elasticity of demand is relatively low so that very few users leave the system as the price of the unit increases (current monthly fees are $25.00). Encouragingly, a PERS system seems to reduce the use of acute hospital care. Admission to the program is followed by declines of 11.7% in hospital admissions and 39.4% in inpatient days with the study group in the first year of PERS support. Measured in terms of marginal cost, the estimated annual savings to the hospitals for this program with 75 subscribers are about $30,000. Based on this finding we estimate that widespread use of this intervention could potentially result in annual savings of Canadian health care costs of over $200 million.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Activities of Daily Living
- Aged
- Canada
- Cost Control
- Costs and Cost Analysis
- Emergencies
- Emergency Medical Service Communication Systems
- Female
- Health Care Costs
- Health Services
- Health Services Research
- Home Care Services
- Hospitalization
- Hospitals
- Humans
- Institutionalization
- Ontario
- economics
- rehabilitation
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102211856
From Meeting Abstracts