Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bernard Le Moullec
Practicum Programme
1
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Pradeep Ray for accepting me in a Practicum
Program and enabling me to study from mid January to end of February 2009 in the Asia‐Pacific
ubiquitous Healthcare research Centre (APuHC). I would like to express my deep gratitude to him for
his advice guided me in the intricate jungle of mobile health technology.
I also take this opportunity to thank Professor Fethi Rabhi for forwarding my practicum application to
the other professors of the UNSW School of Information Systems, Technology & Management, and
therefore allowing me to contact Professor Pradeep Ray. Somehow, I ended up writing this paper
thanks to him.
I would also like to thank Mr. Sebastien Robin (Exchange Advisor Europe & Asia in UNSW), who
informed me of the existence of practicum programs within the University of New South Wales.
Without his help, none of this would have ever been possible.
Last but not least, I must thank Philipp Zuehlke, Amir Talaei‐Khoei and Junhua Li for their warm
welcome and support throughout my practicum. Working with them has proved to be a real
pleasure.
These acknowledgements would not be complete if I forgot to mention my dear family and friends in
France, whose continuous encouragements have been priceless.
2
Abstract
Many countries (especially developing countries) are plagued with critical healthcare issues such as
chronic, infectious and pandemic diseases, a lack of basic healthcare programmes and facilities and a
shortage of skilled healthcare workers. The scope for increase in demand for health services seems
unlimited, whereas the scope for increase in supply is restricted. The unstainable rise in healthcare
costs calls for a new healthcare paradigm. mHealth might have the potential to support healthcare
providers in meeting growing demand. However, what may be technologically feasible, or even
desirable, will not necessarily be economically viable or organisationally realised.
Although the interest in implementing mobile health care solutions is high, data and comprehensive
studies relative to the cost impact of mobile health programs remain scarce. As part of the effort to
enhance Mobile Health implementation, cost assessment becomes an essential requirement for the
successful implementation and use of Mobile Health. Could mHealth become an enabler for better
and cost effective healthcare?
Based on a thorough literature review presenting various types of economic evaluation models
available in terms of healthcare cost measurement, several research gaps have been identified. In
order to address these gaps, this study presents parameters to consider in a cost impact analysis of
mHealth implementation, defining a tentative conceptual framework and analysing differences in
emphasis and functionalities of various kinds of mHealth solutions. There is a need to demonstrate
both the economic viability and the potential of mHealth. In order to achieve this goal, we must
consider the development of a generic methodology, methods and tools for the economic evaluation
of today’s mHealth applications, developing further the state‐of‐the‐art economic impact evaluation
methodologies and identifying cases of good practice in terms of overall performance and
particularly in economic terms, of implemented mHealth systems.
The tools for a potential model for a mobile health cost assessment are exemplified in a short
preliminary case study, providing an example of cost modelization and data to be collected in order
to assess the cost effectiveness a mHealth‐related healthcare program.
3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 2
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 4
Lexicon ..................................................................................................................................................... 6
Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 7
1. Global Longitudinal Study on the Assessment of Mobile Health .................................................... 7
2. Research Issues ............................................................................................................................... 8
3. Motivation of Research ................................................................................................................... 9
4. Study Organization ........................................................................................................................ 10
a. Key Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 10
b. Study Outline ................................................................................................................................. 10
Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................................ 11
1. Method .......................................................................................................................................... 11
2. Introduction to the various cost models used .............................................................................. 12
a. Cost Minimization Analysis............................................................................................................ 13
b. Cost Benefit Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 13
c. Cost Effectiveness Analysis ............................................................................................................ 14
d. Cost Utility Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 16
3. Preliminary findings ....................................................................................................................... 17
a. Limitations and conceptual challenges ......................................................................................... 17
b. Lessons learnt ................................................................................................................................ 20
Chapter 3: Potential Model for Mobile Health Cost Impact Assessment ............................................. 21
1. Introduction to the methodology ................................................................................................. 21
a. Strategic business analysis ............................................................................................................ 21
b. Opportunity costs .......................................................................................................................... 22
c. Estimating costs benefits from both ICT and organisational changes points of view ................... 22
d. Methods for data collection and costing ...................................................................................... 23
e. Economic analysis framework ....................................................................................................... 24
2. Financial Tools ............................................................................................................................... 26
a. Assigning monetary values to benefits ......................................................................................... 26
b. Cost calculations: adjustment for contingencies for unaccounted costs and optimism bias ....... 33
4
c. Time value of money: present value / discounted cash flow ....................................................... 34
d. Accounting for uncertainty: sensitivity analysis ............................................................................ 36
3. Main variables and parameters of costs ....................................................................................... 38
a. About staffing costs ....................................................................................................................... 39
b. About capital costs ........................................................................................................................ 39
c. About social costs .......................................................................................................................... 40
d. About technology costs ................................................................................................................. 41
4. Typology of Healthcare stakeholders, their place in the mHealth value chain and the
cost/benefit effects of mHealth on them.............................................................................................. 43
a. Patients and other citizens ............................................................................................................ 47
b. Healthcare staff ............................................................................................................................. 49
c. Health services provider organizations ......................................................................................... 49
d. Third party payers ......................................................................................................................... 51
5. Typology of mHealth issues depending on country’s level of income economy .......................... 51
a. High income economies ................................................................................................................ 51
b. Middle and low income economies .............................................................................................. 52
Chapter 4: Case Study ........................................................................................................................... 56
1. Scenario Presentation ................................................................................................................... 56
2. Direct costs model ......................................................................................................................... 57
a. Reminder ....................................................................................................................................... 57
b. Actual OT paper‐based assessment process ................................................................................. 57
c. Proposed mHealth‐based OT assessment process ....................................................................... 59
d. Tentative direct cost analysis model ............................................................................................. 61
3. Questionnaire ................................................................................................................................ 66
Chapter 5: Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 69
1. Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 69
2. Limitations and future work .......................................................................................................... 71
References ............................................................................................................................................. 72
5
Lexicon
• 2.5G = "second and a half generation" (of telecommunication standards and technology for
mobile networking)
• 3G = Third Generation (of telecommunication standards and technology for mobile
networking)
• CBA = Cost Benefit Analysis
• CEA = Cost Effectiveness Analysis
• CMA = Cost Minimization Analysis
• CUA = Cost Utility Analysis
• CRM = Customer Relationship Management
• E‐Health or eHealth = Electronic Health
• eHCD = Electronic Healthcare Delivery
• EHR = Electronic Health Records
• E‐Resources = Electronic Resources
• F/OSS = Free / Open Source Software
• ICT = Information and Communication Technologies
• IS/IT = Information Systems / Information Technology
• ITU = International Telecommunication Union
• HMIS = Health Management Information Systems
• M‐Health or mHealth = Mobile Health (to be distinguished from movable facilities in which
diagnostic and therapeutic services are provided to the community, a subject that will not be
discussed here). In this paper mHealth refers to medical and public health practice supported
by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, PDAs, and other
wireless devices. mHealth applications include the use of mobile devices in collecting
community and clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information to practitioners,
researchers, and patients, real‐time monitoring of patient vital signs, and direct provision of
care (via mobile telemedicine). mHealth can be regarded as a subset of eHealth: hence,
economic evaluation of eHealth is somehow relevant to mHealth too.
• PDA = Personal Digital Assistant
• QALY = Quality Adjusted Life Year
• RFID = Radio‐Frequency Identification Device
• ROI = Return on Investment
• SROI = Social Return on Investment
• WAN = Wide Area Network
• WHO = World Health Organisation (WHO)
• WiFi = Wireless Fidelity
• WiMax = Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
• WTP = Willingness to Pay
6
Chapter 1: Introduction
1. Global Longitudinal Study on the Assessment of Mobile Health
Mobile wireless technologies provide powerful and affordable multifunctional services for users in a
number of professions, including business, education, engineering, and medicine. The rapid progress
of mobile communication has made it more popular than land based traditional communication
systems, particularly in developing countries, where the infrastructure for land based communication
is not adequate in rural areas.
e‐Health involves collaborative support for healthcare personnel using Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT). Thanks to the convenience of wireless networks, it is possible to
deploy e‐Health quickly using mobile devices, such as pocket PCs, PDAs, RFID devices and mobile
phones. This phenomenon is now referred to as m‐Health. Although there have been some
spectacular successes in the experimental use of m‐Health in certain parts of the world, there is no
globally acceptable evidence base to show the health outcomes using mobile technology. It is
important to carry out research in this area because the success of mobile e‐Health would help the
world to overcome the “digital divide”, as per the World Health Organization announcement made in
the World Health Assembly in 2005.
The Asia‐Pacific ubiquitous Healthcare research Centre (APuHC ‐ www.apuhc.unsw.edu.au ) at the
University of New South Wales, Australia, has been leading an evidence‐based study on the
Assessment of eHealth for Health Care Delivery (eHCD) for the World Health Organization since 2006
in a number of Asia Pacific countries including India and China. It has been decided to build upon this
expertise to launch a new global cooperative project involving 12 countries all over the world (all the
continents including India and Bangladesh in the subcontinent) to assess the impact of m‐Health in
terms of four factors of health outcome, namely Access, Quality, Acceptance to
physicians/healthcare workers and Cost (AQAC). This study will be conducted over three years from
2009 under the leadership of A/Prof. Pradeep Ray, the director of APuHC, Australia. This study will
involve three phases, each to be conducted over one year as follows:
• Qualitative and Quantitative Pre‐Study before the use of m‐Health
• Installation and commissioning of m‐Health systems
• Qualitative and Quantitative Post‐study on the AQAC factors on health outcome
7
2. Research Issues
The use of eHealth has attracted some attention recently. Many articles have been published
asserting that eHealth is cost efficient. Though, a synthetic meta‐analysis of all this research work has
still to be done. Findings revealed that the benefits of eHealth were documented, but did not include
any cost information. Evidence of the cost benefits is still lacking. eHealth scientific literature is
broadly characterized, on the one hand, by few relevant theoretical studies which deepen the cost
assessment dimension; on the other hand, empirical studies are often small scale, short term,
pragmatic evaluations, focused on a single dimension, with few generalisable conclusions, lacking in
giving a comprehensive appraisal of the application. We still lack strong and reliable evidence proving
that eHealth, let alone mHealth, are a cheaper way of giving healthcare. Most articles restrict to
mere cost comparison. Scarce are the articles that properly employ cost utility analysis or try to
assess the level of use eHealth services need to be at least as cost efficient as current health care
practices. No paper tackles this issue precisely enough to correctly answer it. One of the most
significant weak spots of the evidence provided is the lack of identified circumstances where eHealth
has proved to be cost effective. Maybe even more than other domains of information and
communication new technologies, mHealth cost effectiveness depends on the location where it is
implemented. At the time this paper was written (early 2009), we still lack published evidence to
claim eHealth is indeed a cost efficient substitute or complement to ordinary healthcare.
However, the lack of evidence for eHealth (including mHealth) cost effectiveness does not mean
eHealth (e.g. mHealth) is not cost effective, but only that its cost effectiveness has to be assessed
methodically. For instance, the absence of evidence for the cost efficiency of mHealth doesn’t imply
a lack of cost efficiency for mHealth. Stating the former is not equivalent to stating the latter. Up to
date, no widely recognized universal cost model for mHealth implementation and use has been set
or recognized as a common standard, mainly because of the innate heterogeneity of data available
and health problematics (e.g. developing countries versus developed countries, different specialties
and interventions to be considered, etc.). Though, a modular and adaptable cost assessment
framework of mHealth, analysing impacts on all actors and stakeholders, remains conceivable.
8
3. Motivation of Research
The need for effective solutions in the health care arena is underscored by the 2008 Global
Monitoring Report—the annual assessment of progress toward the Millennium Development Goals.
Fortunately new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are now available to help
improve public health, with wireless communications being the most ubiquitous and widely accepted
of these technologies within the developing world. Within this context, delivering health care
services via mobile communications—commonly referred to as mHealth—has emerged as a
potentially revolutionary solution for a wide array of pressing health care and health care system
needs. Mobile technology represents a groundbreaking method for making health care more
accessible and effective across the developing world. mHealth has the capacity to dramatically
expand access to communications and to transmit voice and data at the precise time it is needed,
which will empower health care workers to make improved diagnoses and provide citizens with
access to health care where it is needed most. mHealth is currently a nascent area with the majority
of projects taking place on a pilot basis. However, given wireless technology’s rapid adoption and its
extensive geographic reach, mHealth has tremendous potential to scale and provide dramatically
improved health outcomes. How precisely does mHealth make health care more effective and
especially cost‐effective? In order to draw in as many funds and investments as possible, mHealth
supporters still have to prove that mobile technology represents a cost‐efficient method for making
health care more accessible and affordable. We lack data on actual benefits, costs and experience
linked to the use of mHealth devices. The ensuing vagueness is a formidable repellent to
implementation in organizations. Asserting mHealth can yield significant cost savings for all the
stakeholders (patients, health providers and organisations alike) is not enough: a rigorous analysis
and economic modelization of the cost impact of mHealth on every link of the healthcare chain must
be undertaken to assess theoretically every single econometric parameter involved and its role
within the healthcare business model considered as a whole. Then and only then, should mHealth
general and universal cost efficiency have been scientifically proved, defending mHealth as a viable
and sustainable means to deliver healthcare will become easier, enabling institutions to foster this
promising technology, adapt themselves to tomorrow’s needs with mobile processes, and by doing
so, changing the world. The knowledge of healthcare costs in a mobile technological context will be
the key to successful change management and adaptation to the new pervasive wireless paradigm.
But before making it happen, we have to answer the following question: from an economic point of
view, should it happen, and why?
9
4. Study Organization
a. Key Objectives
The key objectives for this study are:
• To assess the economic dimension of mHealth amongst all the other dimensions of mHealth
impact assessment (clinical effectiveness, technical feasibility, organisational impact, ethical
issues, to name a few)
• To conduct a review of the several types of economic evaluation models available in terms of
healthcare cost measurement
• To provide a tentative list of parameters to consider in a cost impact analysis of mHealth
implementation, notably based on a quick preliminary case study
b. Study Outline
In Chapter 2 (Literature Review), the fundamentals of Health Economics will be presented; then, the
various types of economic evaluation models available in terms of healthcare cost measurement will
be described and evaluated from a mHealth implementation perspective. Also, research gaps related
to cost evaluation will be identified.
In Chapter 3 (Potential Model for Mobile Health Cost Impact Assessment), in order to address some
of the research gaps previously identified, a tentative list of parameters to consider in a cost impact
analysis of mHealth implementation will be provided to the reader, taking into account geographical,
social and technological variables. Without constituting a thorough and cohesive model in itself but
rather a methodological guide, this chapter points out some landmarks one must bear in mind when
undertaking a cost impact assessment of a mHealth implementation program.
In Chapter 4 (Case Study), I try to provide a basic micro‐economic model to assess the direct costs
and benefits of the use of mobile health in the Occupational Therapy scenario. This model is followed
by a questionnaire designed to collect data so as to test its validity on a larger timescale.
I summarize the contributions of this study in Chapter 5, thereby including some limitations for this
study and perspectives for future work.
10
Chapter 2: Literature Review
1. Method
The main search sources used to obtain the data were:
The main search terms used were: mobile health, mHealth, mobile telemedicine, cost analysis,
healthcare economics, cost function, eHealth, M‐Health, mHealth cost, mobile health costs, cost
savings, cost accounting, and other combinations of any of these words.
The language sources searched were English exclusively.
The range of years was set at 1990 to the present.
All the articles found and used in the present study are listed in the “References” section at the end
of the document. Some articles (principally press cuttings, letters and brief abstracts) were discarded
because of their insufficient analytical content.
11
2. In
ntroductiion to the
e variouss cost models used
d
Economic evaluation
n may be deffined as “thee comparativve analysis o
of alternativee courses of action in
terms off both their costs and consequence
c es”. The bassic tasks of any econom
mic evaluatio
on are to
“identifyy, measure, value and compare th
he costs and consequeences of thee alternative
es under
considerration”. Econ
nomic evalu
uation is useed “to assistt decision‐m
making when choices have to be
made between several possiblee courses of
o action”. Itt involves “drawing
“ up a balance sheet of
advantagges (benefitss) and disadvvantages (co
osts)”. It is likkely to be acccepted that the fundame
ental aim
of any healthcare syystem is to m
maximize thee health and welfare of tthe populatiion, and thiss involves
prioritizaation, since the total bu
udget is finitte. In fact, this
t premise applies wheether the he
ealthcare
system is
i not‐for prrofit (i.e., so
ocialized) or for‐profit (i..e., private sector).
s As ffar as the paayers are
concerneed, they wan
nt the maxim
mum benefit for their mo
oney. (adapteed from P.N.T Wells, 200
03)
12
Health economists use an incremental cost‐effectiveness approach to compare alternative health
policies. Marginal improvements in health outcomes (the additional health benefits) are compared
with marginal changes in the cost of programmes (the additional costs of providing the improved
service). The new policies are compared to current best practice or current patterns of service
organisation and provision. Economic valuations of mHealth often focus on the minimisation of cost
and assume health outcomes are as good as those achieved from other services. This is called “the
conservative approach”; if benefits were also assessed and valued, the cost effectiveness of mHealth
would for sure appear better. (adapted from Paul Scuffham, 2002)
Following are some of the cost models most commonly used in mHealth cost impact assessment
studies.
a. Cost Minimization Analysis
In Cost Minimization Analysis (CMA), the effectiveness of the comparators used must be proven to
be the same. The cost‐effective comparator is the cheapest one, ceteris paribus. Cost Minimization
Analysis can be used when the outcomes of various programs are similar. When health results are
the same, only costs are analyzed and the least expensive solution is selected. In theory, this method
requires clinical evidence to prove that differences in health effects between the different programs
are negligible. The problem with CMA is the assumption about identical outcomes cannot be made
often. Hence, CMA is rarely an appropriate method of analysis. (adapted from Douglas H. Sprenkle,
Fred P. Piercy, 2005)
b. Cost Benefit Analysis
In Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), costs and benefits are evaluated in financial metrics and adjusted for
the time value of money, in order to express all financial flows of benefits and flows of costs (which
occur at different moments in time) are expressed on a common based on their present value. This
mathematical method weighs the expected benefits against the expected costs of various actions so
as to make the best choice. The costs and benefits of a given program are displayed through the
public's willingness to pay for them (i.e. to pay to get the benefits) or willingness to pay to avoid
them (i.e. to pay to get the costs). Inputs are usually measured in terms of opportunity costs – that is
to say the value that would be created in their best alternative use. The key principle is to make a list
13
of the all the stakeholders who are impacted by the intervention and to assign a financial value to the
impact it has on their welfare, according to the way they would value it themselves. Cost benefit
analysis is often used to assess the allocation of a financial value to the result of a technology.CBA is
enables multiple results to be evaluated with common units of measure; thus, it can be used to
investigate different allocations of resources before and after an investment in a technological
paradigm (such as mHealth) is done. CBA allows for the consequence on every stakeholder to be
included in the assessment. It also enables an assessment of a new option as well as for an
assessment of results achieved from an array of different options. (adapted from Karl A. Stroetmann,
Tom Jones, Alexander Dobrev, Veli N. Stroetmann, 2006)
The accuracy of the results of a CBA depends on how precisely costs and benefits have been
estimated: as a consequence, the outcomes of cost‐benefit analyses should be used with caution,
because they may be inaccurate.
c. Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Cost‐effectiveness analysis (CEA) compares the relative expenditure (costs) and outcomes (effects) of
several programs. As far as healthcare is concerned, the cost‐effectiveness of a given health program
is the ratio of the cost of the intervention to a measure of its effect. Here, the word “cost” refers to
the resource used for the intervention, usually expressed in monetary terms. The measure of effects,
expressed in “natural” units, changes depending on the intervention being considered. Cost‐
effectiveness is expressed as an “Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio” (ICER), which can be summed
up by “the ratio of change in costs to the change in effects”. A particular case of CEA is the CUA (Cost‐
Utility Analysis), where the effects are expressed in terms of years of full health lived, using metrics
such as QALYs (Quality‐Adjusted Life Years) or DALYS (Disability‐Adjusted Life Years). CEA can be used
when the outcomes of the compared technologies can be expressed in the same units. ICER is
calculated using the following formula:
ICER = (C1– C2)/(E1– E2)
where C1 = the cost of the new intervention, C2 = the cost of the comparator, E1 = the effect of the
new intervention, and E2 = the effect of the comparator. With CEA, analysts often use a decision
analytic approach (i.e. a complex mathematical modelling technique) that builds upon the long term
costs and effectiveness. (adapted from Patricia W Stone, 2002)
14
¾ If an
n alternative is more cosstly and perfforms less well
w (e.g., prroduces fewe
er health
beneefits), it is un
ndesirable.
¾ If an alternative is more costly and performs as well, it is undesiraable.
¾ If an alternative is less costly and perform
ms better, it should be ussed.
¾ If an alternative is less costly and perform
ms as well, it should be used.
In other cases, cost‐effectivenesss results aree more equivvocal and jud
dgments will be more su
ubjective.
mple,
For exam
(adapted
d from Marillyn J. Field, 1996)
Source: P.
P Musgrove an
nd J. Fox‐Rush
hby, 2006. “Co
ost‐Effectivene
ess Analysis fo
or Priority Settting,” in Disea
ase Control
Priorities iin Developing C al: 276.
Countries, 2nd edition, ed. D..T. Jamison et a
One sho
ould note th
hat the term
m "incrementtal" used in the name “ICER” doess not have the
t usual
economic meaning. Usually, th
he outcomess of an incrremental ch
hange refer to the effe
ect of an
additional unit of a
a given meaasurement. Here what is the comp
pared is thee effect of switching
s
ntions. One must
interven m bear in
n mind that resource allocation deciisions affecting the entire health
15
sector must also take into account social concern. CEA often neglects to identify misallocation of
resources while focusing on the evaluation of new technologies. The quandary of generalizing CEA
studies that are context specific have been exemplified by the multiplication of guidelines for CEA
practice, all using divergent methods. International guidelines still have to be developed. (adapted
from Health Financing for Poor People, Resource Mobilization and Risk Sharing, WHO, 2004)
d. Cost Utility Analysis
Cost Utility Analysis (CUA) measures outcomes in a composite metric named the Quality Adjusted
Life Year (QALY), which is not expressed in financial terms. The goal of CUA is to estimate the ratio
between the cost of a healthcare program and the benefit it brings about in terms of the number of
years lived in full health by the beneficiaries. A threshold value for the ICER is often set by policy
makers, who might decide that only programs that have an ICER below this threshold should be
funded. To compute the quantity of QALYs resulting from the use of a medical technology, the
number of extra years of life obtained is combined with a measure of the quality of life in each of
these years in order to obtain the outcome, enabling alternative technologies to be compared in
terms of the marginal cost per QALY earned. QALYs were created to take into account that an
individual can be concerned with the quality of his/her life as well as its length. QALYs gained from
one healthcare program may be compared with QALYs obtained from alternative healthcare
programs, as well as from non intervention. (adapted from Pauline M. Craig and Grace M. Lindsay,
2001)
In CUA societal benefits and costs are often not taken into account. Furthermore, some economists
believe that measuring QALYs is harder than assessing the monetary value of life through health
improvements, which is done by CBA. In addition, there are ethical problems caused by assigning a
value on human life. Besides the weighting of QALYs is extremely subjective and might cause some
discrimination. Although mHealth is likely to bring about improvements in health outcomes many of
the benefits achieved thanks to mHealth may not impact health outcomes but non‐health outcomes
such as process factors. The QALY method may not correctly assess such benefits from mHealth:
QALY cannot be used as a measure for mHealth where mHealth applications improve citizens’
experience of healthcare without changing the clinical outcome. Likewise, QALYs are not the most
helpful measures to assess the impact on carers, time savings, and improved productivity gained
through the use of mHealth systems. (adapted from
Karl A. Stroetmann, Tom Jones, Alexander Dobrev, 2006)
16
3. Preliminary findings
a. Limitations and conceptual challenges
A quick review of the available academic and scientific publications would suggest that mobile health
is only profitable in the case the costs of travelling to the nearest hospital or doctor’s clinic is
extremely high. It is not clearly established that a mobile health solution is economically viable once
the patient’s travel costs or avoided hospitalizations are removed from the analyses. Longstanding
limitations in the state‐of‐the‐art of empirical assessment of the impact of mHealth, especially in the
socioeconomic dimension, continue to be a serious inhibitor to the take up of mHealth. Most eHealth
evaluation models have not assigned a high priority to measuring or dealing with the socio‐economic
factors. A study of 612 telemedicine applications showed that “less than 9% identified actual cost
benefit data“ (Whitten, P S/Mair, F S/Haycox, A/May, C R/Williams T L/Hellmich, S, 2002: London
Information in practice, Systematic review of cost effectiveness studies of telemedicine interventions,
BMJ June 2002.).
Despite extensive work on evaluation and assessment of the economic and productivity aspects of
eHealth systems and services, this has had little impact on real decision‐making and hence on
eHealth uptake. This has been due to clear limitations of much of this work over recent years. It has
also been shown that many evaluation studies are of limited value to others because they lack
sufficient information to enable others to adopt the approach or test the conclusion. It is unclear
how evaluations of this quality can generate knowledge that is of value to others. The causes for this
current situation run deep and seem to be in part specific to the healthcare domain. No appropriate
evaluation methodology on cost‐benefits of eHealth is widely accepted by the three main
stakeholders: decision makers, healthcare professionals and patients. That report identified the main
challenge as using consistent, comparable measures to deal successfully with all costs and benefits
from health outcomes to productivity increases from the individual perspective of all relevant
stakeholders. It has also been pointed out that cost data in evaluations is uneven and relies on both
actual and proxy data. Proxy data usually includes estimates by experts, as well as data on activities
from which an educated guess of the required data can be made. This applies equally to benefits
data. Monetary measures of benefits other than those arising directly from cost savings, such as
better quality, better access, and time savings, will have to rely more on proxy than on actual data.
(adapted from Alexander Dobrev, Tom Jones, Anne Kersting, Jörg Artmann, Karl A. Stroetmann, Veli
N. Stroetmann, 2008)
17
From a stakeholders’ perspective, there is little reliable information available that can be used to
judge the impacts of Health in the healthcare sector. First, a lack of well‐defined business models and
clear paradigm business cases hinders the potential for investors to assess the economic effects of
implementation. Without data on economic and financial returns and the total cost of mHealth, the
costs of mHealth systems must be estimated through research methods like predictive analysis and
statistical modelling. Furthermore, available evidence comes mostly from time series or pre–post
studies and concerns a restricted number of process measurements. These types of healthcare
provider organisations are not representative of most healthcare settings, so limit the transferability
of findings. Secondly, the absence of trustworthy data obviates the potential for policy measures to
be developed. Plus, the means of payment and reimbursement for both electronic health and
mobile health services have not been standardized yet. If mHealth is going to expand beyond its
present use, the question of reimbursement must be solved. (adapted from Basit Chaudhry, 2006)
There are differing opinions about the availability of cost information. One study claims that there is
“no shortage of information regarding cost aspects of mHealth”, but that information on “quality,
access and acceptability” is less explicit. Another review of studies concludes that financial effects are
neglected due to a focus on measures of benefits. Either way, important information from research
about costs needed for mHealth investment decisions is difficult to detect. Besides, there is a strong
need to identify whose perspective is taken in mHealth economic analysis as the specific perspective
taken (society, patient, provider, facility or system) is seldom made explicit in most studies.
Working across healthcare and clinical activities to advance mHealth projects tend to rely on
healthcare professionals and other healthcare workers reallocating their time to mHealth and away
from other activities. Finance for these resources is within organisations’ existing budgets and critical
to successful mHealth. Identifying and planning this part of finance for mHealth is seldom completed
in most studies. What’s more, the probability of adverse events occurring needs to be taken into
account, but is difficult to assess. Research on risk exposure and probabilities in the context of
mHealth is extremely limited. One must not forget that risk is a cost needing finance as well and that
the financial costs of risk can exceed the extra finance generated from a mHealth investment.
Cost analyses of mHealth face “conceptual challenges that typify new device‐based technologies with
sizable fixed costs and multiple potential uses. Cost analyses can address these issues and clarify
their implications but cannot definitively resolve them” (Stefan Håkansson, 1999). It is very difficult
to evaluate mHealth. Constantly changing technology, multiple applications and joint costs,
inappropriateness of the conventional techniques of economic evaluation and possibly expanding
indications are examples of factors that have to be taken into account. The evaluations which have
18
been done have mostly been limited to feasibility studies. Very few, if any, have evaluated the
outcomes of care or the economic impact. Plus, in the mHealth literature, equivalent effectiveness
often seems no more than a working assumption and evidence of equivalence is not presented.
One difficulty arises from the varied uses to which a mHealth system may be put. Parts of the system
might be used to support emergency medical services, radiology consults, interactive patient
counseling sessions, and monitoring of patients in their homes. “Although each application may have
costs specific to its use, such as certain personnel and supplies, all the applications may share other
costs related to certain equipment and perhaps certain personnel and supplies. In contrast to
accounting conventions, which apply administrative rules to apportion such joint costs of production,
economic principles call for allocating joint costs according to the demand that each service faces”.
(Marilyn J. Field, 1996)
Another challenge arises because mHealth, like other innovations, may lead to expanded indications
for use. Almost all recent economic analysis of the hospital sector based on the assumption, in the
dual case, that firms are cost‐minimizing. Rarely is the assumption actually tested. There is actually a
broad consensus among health economists that the introduction of new technology often leads to
increased cost. Few technologies are cost‐reducing. The reason is that new technology may lead to
expanded indications for use. For example, a mHealth system may be established to permit more
timely diagnoses and treatments in rural areas. However, once mHealth has become available and
been accepted, physicians might use mHealth for cases that are not that urgent. Even if per unit costs
of mHealth decline with the volume of interventions growing, total expenditures may increase as the
total volume of intervention increases. In order to utilize the potential of mHealth, its integration
with traditional health‐care is crucial. The cost effectiveness of mHealth is currently limited by the
positioning of mHealth outside the mainstream of health‐care. For some critics, mHealth is seen as a
peripheral activity and as a novelty area for technology enthusiasts. The cost effectiveness of
mHealth will improve considerably once it becomes part of a wider integrated TIC paradigm in the
health sector. (adapted from Stefan Håkansson, 2000)
Another challenge is that technological change may outdate a static study of benefits and costs even
prior to the completion of the analysis itself. The diffusion and evolution of new technologies like
mHealth technologies is a dynamic process that needs ongoing evaluation. The more they use
mHealth technologies, the more mHealth users are likely to gain experience and proficiency that will
eventually bring about lower costs and better outcomes.
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Convincing evidence regarding the cost‐effectiveness of mHealth is still limited and good‐quality
studies are rare. Scholars still need to analyse the cost implications of both eHealth and mHealth. For
instance, with the exception of PDA‐assisted data collection, there are still few scientifically rigorous
data on the cost‐effectiveness of mHealth systems in developing countries. The demonstration
projects so far have failed to show that m‐Health services result in real savings and have cost
effective potential. (adapted from Warren A Kaplan, 2006; Peter Wells & al., 2006; Nirupam Mishra,
2009)
b. Lessons learnt
The literature review indicates that case studies are appropriate, and that the benefits of using case
studies can be realised if their methodology is generic and adaptive so that findings can be
transferred to other sites for two main purposes. One is to use it to contribute to decisions about
mHealth in the future; the other is to review current mHealth investment to ensure it is optimal.
Both require a methodology that is built on sufficient detail for other sites to be able to convert or
interpret findings for their specific settings. An important aspect seems to be to produce findings
together with an analysis that explains why the outcome was achieved.
The methodology relevant to mHealth’s challenges and opportunities needs to deal with the
components of mHealth investment comprehensively. These components include a temporal
compilation of costs of ICT and organisational change; the main mHealth functionalities; its
utilisation; the main stakeholder types; and the benefits. It must also distinguish between socio‐
economic costs and benefits for stakeholders and the narrower financial dimensions that are related
to flows of funds. The literature review did not identify an approach that includes all these factors.
Few studies have evaluated all the economic and productivity aspects of proven eHealth / mHealth
applications. Instead, lessons can be drawn from partial studies and several general economic
evaluation theories, methodologies and projects. These can be applied in the assessment framework,
and then incorporated in the mHealth evaluation model. This is the area of study for health
economists. Specifically, an impact model should be created to differentiate between elements that
contribute to the success of a mHealth service and can be used elsewhere, technological factors and
factors that are specific to the location, for instance geographical and environmental factors. A
comprehensive cost benefits analysis should take account for the direct and indirect financial costs
and balance them against the non‐financial factors (i.e. benefits like improved health outcome) for
every stakeholder.
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Chap
pter 3: P
Potenttial Mod
del for Mobile
e Health
h Cost
Impa
act Assessmen nt
1. In
ntroductiion to the
e method
dology
a. Stra
ategic bussiness analysis
How can
n we improve the estimaates of costss and benefitts and be cleear on the neet benefits aand value
added frrom mHealth
h investmentts?
In order to make an assessment of the future impact of m
mHealth solu necessary to combine
utions, it is n
a strateggic foresight analysis with
h an econom
mic perspective, making aa business caase for mHeaalth:
Adapted from “Assessin
ng socio‐econo
omic and clinicaal benefits from
m eHealth soluttions ‐ approacch and evidence
e” (Karl A.
Sttroetmann, 200
08)
21
b. Opportunity costs
In the cost assessment, one must consider the mHealth and the alternative program have from a
socio‐economic perspective while addressing all relevant stakeholders. The costs of mobile health
could be dependent on the degree of utilization and on the variable costs of a project. In general, the
higher the degree of utilization, the lower the unit cost. Costs should reflect opportunity costs and
may be valued in terms of market prices or shadow prices (i.e.” the change in the objective value of
the optimal solution of an optimization problem obtained by relaxing the constraint by one unit, for
instance the maximum price that an economic agent is willing to pay for an extra unit of a given
limited resource”). Shadow pricing should be used to determine the economic costs of goods that
have no market price or if market prices are believed to have major distortions. The economic
concept of opportunity cost assumes that resources are scarce and that every time resources are
used in one way, the opportunity of using them in other beneficial activities is given up. The
opportunity cost of any technology is therefore defined as “the benefit forgone from not using that
resource in its best alternative use. Only if a resource has a next best use does it have an opportunity
cost” (Peter Wells & al., 2006).
c. Estimating costs benefits from both ICT and organisational
changes points of view
One of the first steps of any practical costing exercise is to identify the production process of the
programme or intervention. There are several ways of classifying costs. For example, they can be
classified by input category (e.g. salaries, medical supplies, capital, etc.), intervention activity (e.g.
administration, planning, and supervision) or organizational level (e.g. national, district, hospital). The
most important point to consider when choosing a classification scheme is to make sure that all the
relevant costs are included and that the classification categories do not overlap.
ICT and organisational change are the two main components of mHealth used for this evaluation, so
costs will be divided into these two main types. At its simplest, ICT is defined as hardware,
middleware, software and obsolescence. Where these are supplied by a vendor, identifying the cost
is relatively straightforward, and is partly determined by the choice of procurement model. Where
people and teams from the users are involved, an estimate of their time and costs are needed. For
organisational change, costs such as stakeholder engagement, procurement, project management,
programme management, training, change management, and information governance are included.
22
This classification enables the changing relationship between ICT and organisational change over
time to be identified. The classification of costs between ICT and organisational change also supports
the analysis of incremental changes for the impact on business models. A second‐stage classification
of these two types of cost into the three financial categories of extra financial, redeployed, and
nonfinancial, shows the nature of the required and changing financial investment over mHealth life
cycles. This will be essential for transferability to other cases where the relationships between the
socio‐economic and the financial aspects need to be set.
The concept of cost‐avoidance is also important in order to identify the cost for achieving the ICT‐
based performance without ICT (this cost is often prohibitive). Fundamentally, what is needed is a
positive response to the challenge of limited resources. (adapted from
Karl A. Stroetmann, Tom Jones, Alexander Dobrev)
Because of the difficulty of changing grass roots practices, the cost of implementing a major
healthcare initiative is often far superior to the actual cost of the technology itself, because of the
lack of clinical buy in.
d. Methods for data collection and costing
Methods for data collection in mHealth cost impact study should take into account costs obtained by
the accounting system or computed by detecting all the resources used during the project through in
site analysis (from societal, provider and patient perspectives). Methods for data analysis in mHealth
cost impact study should rely on total annual costs differences measured through statistical
comparison methods and use different cost scenarios deepened through break‐even analysis and
sensitivity analysis. When a new technology is developed, randomized controls tent to be the best
method to test its real efficiency.
“Straightforward randomized controlled trials are not directly applicable to the assessment of
technologies that are in the process of evolution. This is because the result of such a trial, when it
eventually becomes available, is irrelevant to the evolved (and presumably improved) variant of the
technology that then exists. In the meanwhile also, the technology is likely to have diffused into the
healthcare system to the extent that clinicians believe it to be indispensable, even though there may
be no firm evidence for this. Thus, when the technology has become sufficiently mature (and stable)
for a randomized controlled trial to be contemplated, it is impossible to carry out such a trial both
because clinicians think that they depend on it and say that it would be unethical to deny its use to a
randomized group of patients, and because patients’ expectations include the provision of the
23
technology. Tracker studies have been proposed as a methodology to solve this problem. The idea is
that, with a rapidly changing technology, the randomized controlled trials should not await stability
but should be used to track progress over time and provide an unbiased comparison between rival
technologies at each stage in their evolution. The protocol is flexible and the sample size is
determined by what is available and necessary to make a judgment. Several centers can be involved,
provided that standardized outcome measures are used. The benefits are that poor performance can
be quickly identified and that the study can proceed until the technology has stabilized and the result
has become sufficiently robust to be useful”. (extract from PNT Wells, 2003)
New technologies rarely replace existing technologies but complement them instead, thus the
concept of a substitute technology cannot be applied in reality. Moreover, the healthcare system
does not exist in isolation, as does its costs impact on national economies. The evaluation of the
opportunity of using or not using a new technology depends on very evaluation process itself.
Besides, findings and results of eHealth & mHealth impact assessments can differ depending on the
evaluation category. Macro analysis may lead to overall positive results, whilst micro analysis may
reveal negatives. Therefore, differentiating between internal and external effects is crucial. (adapted
from PNT Wells, 2002)
The estimated costs and benefits provide a start point from mHealth economic analysis. The sets of
data needed include notably the following:
• Effect of the procurement model on cash flow
• All internal finance from reserves
• Estimates of availability of finance needed for investment humps in the earlier years of the
investment lifecycle and recurring annual finance for the later operational years of the
lifecycle
• Estimates of interest payments, annual depreciation and amortisation
• Estimates of taxes not recoverable, such as value added tax
• Estimates of the cash flow needed for the cost in each year of the lifecycle
• Estimates of the cash flow generated from the benefits in each year of the lifecycle
e. Economic analysis framework
The underlying socio‐economic concept used here is the Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA). Costs include
the initial and continuous mHealth investments, such as those in ICT and change management, as
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well as the running costs of healthcare. Cost analysis examines the differential, incremental, or
marginal costs of one alternative compared to another. The analysis focuses on costs that differ
among the alternatives, including personnel, supplies, and personal transportation and time for the
health practitioner or patient. Negative impacts fall under the cost category, whereas positive
impacts are aggregated as benefits. The perspectives of all stakeholders are included in the analysis.
The topic of central interest is the development of net benefits, defined as estimated benefits less
estimated costs, over time.
• Value added from mHealth = value of health services with mHealth less (minus) value
of health services without mHealth
• Total value added/net benefit = sum of positive and negative ”value added” for each
stakeholder group
• socio‐economic Impact = social added value = value added – value destroyed
(adapted from Karl E. Stroetmann, 2008)
This is the basic equation of a cost‐benefit analysis. Thus, socio‐economic impact is presented by net
benefits. Applied to a dynamic context, the overall socioeconomic impact of mHealth systems
becomes net benefits over time. In a mathematical representation, impact (I) equals net benefit over
time (NB), which is benefits (B) less costs (C) for each year in the evaluation period (n).
I = NB = Σ1,n (Bn-Cn)
In an ideal model of perfect competition and complete markets, health services values can be
derived from market prices for healthcare. However, the health services sector is marked by market
failures, partly for structural, and partly for historic reasons. Thus, the way to estimate the value
added has to focus on change.
A number of health services will not be affected by a particular implementation of mHealth system,
so their value will be equal in both cases of the with/without comparison and will mathematically
cancel out from the equation. This leaves us with the task to identify and focus on the services
affected by mHealth systems. We talk about positive effects, or benefits, when value is created, and
about negative effects, or costs, when value is destroyed. The total value added is the sum of positive
and negative “value added”, or value added less value destroyed, also referred to as net benefit.
The main difference between health economics science and IS/IT science is that the cost/utility
analysis for IS/IT tends to be more often ex‐ante than in health economics. In health economics
doctors want to develop and give the best treatments available, they only consider the associated
costs afterwards. This approach is no longer sustainable, given the future economic environment:
25
the economic evaluation must become more often ex‐ante, because of the tightened financial
situation. Although mHealth economic efficiency studies will have to focus on ex‐post evaluations,
their approach will be aligned to providing maximum usefulness and applicability for real decision‐
making, i.e. future ex‐ante assessments of alternative resource allocations in healthcare. (adapted
from Alexander Dobrev & al., 2008)
2. Financial Tools
A variety of techniques, including Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), Cost Consequence Analysis (CCA), Cost
Effectiveness Analysis (CEA), Cost minimisation, marginal net present value (MNPV), affordability gap
analysis, payback period and mHealth utilisation is available.
a. Assigning monetary values to benefits
Benefits depend on the type of mHealth investment. Some generic examples are:
• Improved patient safety
• Better informed patients
• Better informed healthcare professionals
• More streamlined healthcare for patients
• More modern healthcare for patients
• More effective healthcare for patients
• Improved access for patients
• Reduced admissions to hospital
• Time savings for healthcare professionals
• Reduced duplication of direct healthcare activities and waste
• Improved working environment for healthcare professionals
• Improved productivity enabling more patients to access healthcare
• Reduced unit costs of healthcare
• Improved transfer of information for other purposes
Here the question is: how can we assign objective monetary values to this range of benefits? Valuing
these types of costs and benefits relies on estimation techniques at this stage of the decision. These
include:
• Timing of costs and benefits
• Linking ICT, functionality, performance and utilisation to benefits
• Unit cost of employees time
• Values of time of patients and citizens, including travel times
26
• Willingness to pay for improved quality, access, convenience and working environment
• Value, probability and exposure to risk
• Assessing and adjusting for optimism
• Sensitivity testing
(adapted from Tom Jones & Alexander Dobrev, 2008)
(In “TeleMed & eHealth ’08: Optimising Patient Centred Care ‐ the role of eHealth”, Alexander Dobrev, 2008)
In an economic analysis, monetary values have to be assigned to enable the economic and
productivity performance to be evaluated. Productivity can be measured by variations in unit costs.
Methods of productivity analysis presented here are based on cost functions, or better said the
econometric analysis of cost functions. Doing so allows for identification of potential common
patterns, trends and relationships in the end, when aggregating the results. Monetary values can be
assigned to positive and negative impact items, even if only proxy data is available. Monetary values
have to be assigned to intangible costs and benefits to enable comparisons between mHealth
projects.
Monetary values assigned to costs and benefits should be based on market prices whenever they are
available, because prices tend to reflect the best alternative use of the resources available. Some
costs and benefits are social, environmental, organisational or cultural, and have no obvious market
price to reflect their values. When dealing with these types of impact, “benefits” should be
27
understood as changes towards a more desired situation, and “costs” should include items like
reduced comfort or extra effort associated with the introduction of mHealth solutions.
Efficiency benefits are reflected in improved productivity, avoided waste, and optimisation of
resource utilisation. Two common signs of increased efficiency are time‐savings and cost avoidance.
Cost avoidance is the estimated virtual cost of providing the standard of performance as achieved
with the help of mHealth, but by conventional methods in use before the mHealth investment. This
requires estimates of the additional staff and other resources needed. In practice, the mHealth
performance cannot be attained easily, if at all, by these means, but the cost avoided is a proxy for
the impact of mHealth in enhanced performance.
(adapted from Karl A. Stroetmann, Tom Jones, Alexander Dobrev, Veli N. Stroetmann, 2008)
A general problem when dealing with health issues is its intangibility. Some benefits may ultimately
be gains to health and are difficult to measure in monetary terms. Similarly, some “soft” negative
impacts, such as general pressure to users during implementation time do not have a market price.
However, these negative and positive impacts do have a value to the individual and this value can be
expressed in monetary terms. Assigning value to time and other resources saved, or avoided because
of mHealth, is an important part of this model. Time as a healthcare resource is valued as total
average costs for main types of full time equivalent employment staff. Time for individual citizens is
valued on the basis of typical minimum wages. Assigning value to time and other resources saved, or
the use of which is avoided thanks to mHealth, is most common. Time as a healthcare resource is
valued in full time equivalent employment costs. Time for individual citizens is valued on the basis of
net earnings. The value of other resources is assigned according to market prices. The latter
technique is also used for measuring travel costs and time, either as costs to a service, or for
measuring the benefit of reduced travel. The use of healthcare resources, such as diagnostic tests
and emergency attendances, are valued at representative, available total average costs. The value of
other resources is assigned according to estimated market prices. These principles are applied to
both costs and benefits where appropriate.
Economic impacts include the monetary expression of costs and benefits over time. Costs are often
much easier measured than benefits. However, also for benefits a variety of tools are available for
meaningful estimations. Examples are proxy prices, willingness to pay studies or time savings
converted into monetary equivalents based on income. Data for modelling these impacts have to be
integrated with the analysis of the social aspects. Indeed, some classify benefits for citizens or the
system as social rather than economic impacts. (adapted from Dobrev & al., 2008)
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We can distinguish between three types of financial impact:
• Financial “extra”: Tangible costs and benefits that require additional liquidity or liberate
finance
• Financial redeployed: Tangible costs and benefits that have required financial resources to be
redeployed, but do not require additional, or liberate finance
• Non‐financial: Intangible costs and benefits that are classified as non‐financial and have been
assigned estimated monetary values.
Considering purely financial return on investment (ROI = rate of return, i.e. the ratio of money gained
or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested) at an institutional level, or
potential benefits for only one of the stakeholders, may lead to suboptimal decisions. Any mHealth
financial Return On Investment analysis should start by setting measurable goals and expected
results. It seems that the healthcare industry has not yet learned to perform these steps well. Many
of the stakeholders who describe the goals of mHealth state that they want mHealth to reduce
hassles, increase revenue, aid in patient safety, improve productivity, and/or help achieve better
quality outcomes. These "goals," however, are meaningless in defining benefits for an ROI analysis. In
fact, if mHealth can’t achieve these goals, why go through the expense and effort to implement one?
(adapted from Margret Amatayakul, 2003)
The following sections provide some detailed presentations and explanations of the financial tools at
our disposal.
• Actual prices or proxies
In providing recommendations for valuation in cost‐benefit analysis, in particular for resource‐poor
countries, it is important to keep in mind the need to develop approaches that can be applied widely
in many settings, that do not have stringent data needs, and that can be applied by non‐specialists
who do not necessarily have an in‐depth understanding of economic principles. However, it is
important to decide first which methods are methodologically correct before asking if they can be
applied in practice.
Real prices and ideal prices are different: actual prices are prices paid for products, services, assets
and labour, whereas computed prices are not actually charged or paid in market trade. Money‐prices
are numbers, and numbers can be computed with exactitude. This seems to make economics exact
sciences. Nevertheless, in the real world, prices tend to change fast, due to conditions too numerous
29
to enumerated here. As a consequence, when calculating price quantities a value theory is applied:
this value theory refers to prices which could be used under certain assumed conditions, somewhere
between actual prices and ideal prices.
In statistics, a proxy variable is something that is probably not in itself of any great interest, but from
which a variable of interest can be obtained. In order for this to be the case, the proxy variable must
have a close correlation, not necessarily linear or positive, with the inferred value. For instance, two
common signs of increased efficiency are time savings and cost avoidance. Cost avoidance
conceptualises the estimated virtual cost of providing the standard of performance as achieved by
mHealth, but by conventional methods in use before the mHealth investment. This requires
estimates of the staff and other resources needed to provide the same level of service without the
mHealth solution. In practice, the mHealth performance cannot be attained easily, if at all, by these
means, but the estimated additional cost avoided is a proxy for the enhanced performance of
mHealth. (adapted from Karl A. Stroetmann, Tom Jones, Alexander Dobrev, 2006)
Although they are frequently used as proxy variables for the costs of services, billed charges may
contain important distortions amongst services, particularly given the payment arrangements that
address a substantial portion of health services. As payments are based on actual financial
transactions, they tend to be preferable to charges, although they may be poor proxies too for direct
measures of costs in markets characterized by big discounts to some payers. To document the actual
use and per unit cost of resources consumed in order to provide a healthcare service would be a
better approach, though much more difficult. (adapted from Marilyn J. Field, 1996)
• Time savings and costs of Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
Full‐Time Equivalent (FTE) is a way to measure a worker's involvement in a project. A FTE of 1.0
means that the person is equivalent to a full‐time worker, while a FTE of 0.5 signals that the worker is
only half‐time. Typically, different scales are used to calibrate this number, depending on the type of
institution (schools, industry, research) and scope of the report (personnel cost, productivity). The
costs are expressed as Full‐Time Equivalent staff. Each line item FTE can be multiplied times the
appropriate salary to obtain the semi variable and fixed costs for one given operating unit. Studies
can collect data about time efficiency using a time and motion methodology in comparison to work
sampling and self‐report/survey methods. Time efficiency is one of several factors that are used to
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assess the quality of mHealth integration. Time saving is an important benefit and productivity
measure. (adapted from Lise Poissant, 2005)
• Contingent valuation
Contingent valuation is an economic tool based on surveys and designed to value non‐market
resources. Even if these resources are useful to people, not every aspect of them has a market price
as they are not sold directly. To measure these aspects, economists can use contingent valuation
surveys, which are a stated preference model, in contrast to a price‐based revealed preference
model. A contingent valuation survey asks “how much money people would be willing to pay (or
willing to accept) to maintain the existence of (or be compensated for the loss of) the existence of
some environmental feature”. (non‐)Health outcomes and process attributes can be valued through
contingent valuation. This method relies on the assumption that the maximum quantity of money
that an economic agent is willing to pay for a good/service reflects the value of this service for them.
This approach is based on choice: economic agents can choose between not having the product or
service and having the product or service but at the price of a certain monetary amount. The
financial amount that they are willing to give up to have the commodity is their willingness to pay for
that commodity. (Zerbe, Richard O. and Allen S. Bellas. 2006)
However, many economists contest the use of stated preferences to measure the willingness to pay
for a good or a service, as they prefer to base their analysis on people's revealed preferences in
market transactions.
• Discrete choice experiments (DCE)
“Discrete choice" problems (i.e. choices between two or more discrete solutions) contrast with
standard consumption models characterized by the fact the quantity of each good consumed is
supposed to vary continuously. Within the framework of the continuous standard consumption
model, economist can employ methods of computation to find out the theoretical optimum, while
demand can be modelized through regression analysis.
Discrete choice modelization is usually done with logit (the inverse of the "sigmoid", or "logistic"
function used in mathematics) and probit (the inverse cumulative distribution function or quantile
function associated with the standard normal distribution) models. This modelization uses statistical
models to quantify the consequences of variations in the attributes of a given choice. The data
31
needed in order to create the models can be collected from surveys, experiments or structural
estimation price and quantity information.
Health economists can also use DCE to value health outcomes, non‐health outcomes and process
attributes (and also trade‐offs between these three). “DCEs are an attribute‐based measure of
benefit. The technique is based on the premises that, first, any good or service can be described by
its characteristics (or attributes) and, second, the extent to which an individual values a good or
service depends upon the levels of these characteristics. The technique involves presenting choices
to individuals that vary with respect to the levels of attributes. From responses, it is possible to
estimate the relative importance of attributes, how individuals trade between the attributes and, if a
price proxy is included as an attribute, willingness to pay for defined services.” (Dr Anthony Scott,
2003; Mandy Ryan, 2005)
• Willingness to pay approach
The Consumer surplus is the amount that consumers benefit by being able to purchase a product for a
price that is less than they would be willing to pay.
Willingness to pay (WTP) is the main estimation method used for the monetary value of intangible
benefits without a market price. These are usually benefits or costs to individuals, such as improved
32
quality, changes in convenience, less or more stress, and changes in the amount of attention to
patients from medical staff. The aim is to simulate a market by estimating how much users or
beneficiaries will be willing to spend if they could receive the benefit, respectively avoid the negative
impact, but only against payment. Where impacts cannot be readily measured and quantified, or
prices determined from market data, the WTP can be determined by inferring a price from
observations of consumer behaviour. Conservative assumptions are made for all estimates to avoid
overvaluing benefits, especially where the impact of a service with mHealth can be reasonably
expected as part of routine services before mHealth. The only condition for using WTP is that a
different service is provided, and that someone, a citizen, a professional, administrative staff, is using
it. As long as this is the case, a value may be attributed to the provision of that service. The economic
good can be in the form of benefits from services that may range from feeling more comfortable with
the knowledge of a complete health insurance cover when travelling to avoiding death through a
more effective emergency service control and allocation system. Intangible benefits are benefits to
citizens, for instance improved convenience and quality, or greater attention from medical staff. The
WTP approach aims to simulate a market by assessing how healthcare beneficiaries would be willing
to pay if they could receive the benefit only against monetary payment. (adapted from Karl A.
Stroetmann & al., 2006)
b. Cost calculations: adjustment for contingencies for unaccounted
costs and optimism bias
Optimism bias is a common feature of all investment plans, so mHealth is no exception. It distorts
financing requirements and impairs financial sustainability. Asking whether or not mHealth
technology can reduce the cost of healthcare implies that there is some baseline cost, acceptable at
some particular point in time, after which the cost may rise or fall as the result of change brought
about by new technology. The cost calculation includes annual cost estimates for each stakeholder
group. Each cost item is assigned one of three financial characteristics of extra finance needed;
redeployed finance needed; and non‐financial, that can be used in the Cost Summary to indicate the
financial impact of mHealth systems. Some cost items will have to be separated into their component
parts where two or three of the financial characteristics apply. "Approximate" payment
methodologies that "bundle" unaccounted‐for costs could be developed into a set of payment
categories from which health care providers are paid .Contingency rates, as a percentage increase of
the costs, are applied to each cost category to adjust the estimates for the degree of reliance on
estimates and assumptions that could be incomplete. Optimism bias is the demonstrated systematic
33
tendency for appraisers to be over‐optimistic about key project parameters. It must be accounted for
explicitly in all appraisals, and can arise in relation to capital costs or orientation costs. Using
estimated values, which is necessary to measure the impact of mHealth, cannot be done properly
without doing adjustments for contingencies and optimism bias, as estimates of benefits and costs
tend to overstate benefits and understate costs. When estimates rely more on subjective judgement
than objective facts and the person making the judgements is too involved in the evaluation subject,
the bias gets even more important. Moreover, there are costs that cannot be extracted precisely
from the global cost of a greater service. As a consequence, contingency adjustments need to be
applied before any conclusion about the net economic impact can be made. (adapted from
Karl A. Stroetmann & al., 2006)
c. Time value of money: present value / discounted cash flow
If the health effects or cost implications of mHealth or its alternatives stretch over time, the future
stream of health effects and costs should be discounted to their present value. The final cost and
benefit estimates of each option need converting to present values, using discounted cash flow. The
option with the highest net present value offers the best investment. It offers the best value for
money. Discounting is necessary to express costs on a common basis (present value) when they are
incurred at different points in time. All monetary values are converted onto a comparable time base
by presenting them in present values, using the discounted cash flow technique. The present value
concept reduces nominal monetary values in the future by the discount rate to show their value at
present, thus reflecting an opportunity cost of time. The base year is different for each evaluation.
The logic for discounting costs is that the value of a unit of consumption to individuals and society
decreases over time, for three possible reasons. First, individuals take into account the fact that they
might not be alive to benefit from future consumption, and society takes into account the possibility
of catastrophe—the possibility that any or all interventions might at some point in the future become
valueless due to the technology becoming obsolete, climate change or social chaos, for example.
Second, people and society might simply prefer consumption now to consumption in the future—
called the pure rate of time preference or, sometimes, myopia. Third, if it is expected that incomes
will increase, the marginal welfare gain from an additional unit of consumption will be lower in the
future, when people are richer, meaning that any given increase in consumption is more valuable
now than in the future. Accordingly it is standard practice to discount future costs to their present
values to allow for differences in the value of one extra unit of consumption over time. Discounting
reflects the idea that people place a higher value on events or benefits in the present than in the
34
future and that funds invested in the present can reap interest over time. It is not an adjustment for
inflation. (adapted from Tessa Tan‐Torres Edejer, World Health Organization, R. Baltussen, A.
Acharya, T. Adam, 2003)
The discounted cash flow formula is derived from the future value formula for calculating the time
value of money and compounding returns.
The simplified version of the (for one cash flow in one future period) is expressed as:
where
• DPV is the discounted present value of the future cash flow (FV), or FV adjusted for the delay
in receipt;
• FV is the nominal value of a cash flow amount in a future period;
• i is the interest rate, which reflects the cost of tying up capital and may also allow for the risk
that the payment may not be received in full;
• d is the discount rate, which is i/(1+i), i.e. the interest rate expressed as a deduction at the
beginning of the year instead of an addition at the end of the year;
• n is the time in years before the future cash flow occurs.
Where multiple cash flows in multiple time periods are discounted, it is necessary to sum them as
follows:
for each future cash flow (FV) at any time period (t) in years from the present time, summed over all
time periods. The sum can then be used as a net present value figure. If the amount to be paid at
time 0 (now) for all the future cash flows is known, then that amount can be substituted for DPV and
the equation can be solved for i, that is the internal rate of return.
All the above assumes that the interest rate remains constant throughout the whole period.
With continuous cash flows, the summation in the above formula is replaced by an integration:
DPV= integral over the required time period of FV(t) * (1‐exp(‐it)) dt
where FV(t) is now the rate of cash flow.
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d. Accounting for uncertainty: sensitivity analysis
All estimates of costs and effects are subject to uncertainty and the sources of this uncertainty can
be categorized in a number of ways, for instance: parameter uncertainty, model uncertainty and
generalizability uncertainty. Parameter uncertainty arises for two reasons. The first is due to sample
variation around estimates of variables used to calculate a cost effectiveness ration, such as unit
costs or the efficiency of an intervention. The second is because there is no agreement about value
judgements required for the cost analysis—the choice of the appropriate discount rate is an
example. Model uncertainty relates to uncertainty around the appropriate functional form of a
model used to estimate a particular parameter and the explanatory variables that should be
included. Generalizability uncertainty relates to the need to extrapolate the results of studies.
(adapted from Tessa Tan‐Torres Edejer, World Health Organization, R. Baltussen, A. Acharya, T.
Adam, 2003)
Various methods can be used to show the impact of uncertainty on estimates of cost‐effectiveness.
Sensitivity analysis is useful to indicate uncertainty related to value judgements, while the
bootstrapping approach (i.e. a re‐sampling technique used to obtain estimates of summary statistics
that doesn’t need to assume the distribution family of the data and proves to be useful to quantify
uncertainty related to parameter estimates through probabilistic analysis, thanks to its good
asymptotic properties) can be applied to capture uncertainty related to the distribution of parameter
estimates.
The results of the evaluation are always tested for robustness by a sensitivity analysis. Sensitivity
analysis studies how the output uncertainty of a mathematical model can be divided and shared
between different sources of variation in the model input. This type of analysis puts the robustness
of a mathematical modelling study to the test, trying to identify which source of uncertainty is likely
to affect more the study’s outcomes. For instance, various guidelines for impact assessment advise to
use sensitivity analysis to ensure the quality of the study. Sensitivity analysis is often used to
anticipate criticism in modern econometrics.
Analysts facing a decision problem might try to identify cost drivers as well as other quantities so as
to make a relevant choice. Since some quantities don’t have any influence on the predictions,
economists can relax some of the conditions without any loss of accuracy. Here are some situations
where this type of analysis can prove useful:
• identifying critical assumptions and comparing alternative model structures
36
• guiding future data collections
• detecting important criteria
• optimizing the allocation of resources
• model simplification or model lumping, etc.
Nevertheless, the use of sensitivity analysis in an economic context is not without its shortcomings:
• Examining every single variable individually is unrealistic, since they are all interdependent.
For instance, a mere change in one factor such as price is likely to affect other factors such as
volume.
• Often past experience/data which may not hold in the future are used as a basis for
sensitivity analysis. This is all the more critical so as sensitivity analysis is also used with
innovative technologies such as mHealth since they’re likely to bring about a new healthcare
economic model.
• Setting a pessimistic/minimum and optimistic/maximum value depends on subjective
interpretation. For example, an economist's forecast may be more conservative than that of
another economist performing another part of the sensitivity analysis. This high level of
impact of subjectivity can negatively influence the objectivity and accuracy of the sensitivity
analysis.
• It might be also better to use probabilistic uncertainty analysis to explore the impact of
variability in parameters which can be measured and for which there is an underlying
probability distribution (as sensitivity analysis is more relevant for variables that cannot be
measured and for which there is no probability distribution).
Uncertain context is linked to decision making in health care. Cost effectiveness acceptability and
sensitivity analysis curves establish the degree to which this uncertainty could impact conclusions
about the economic outcome of clinical decisions: results are calculated separately, while making
uncertain estimates of risks, benefits, and values vary over a given set of parameters, allowing
analysts to find out how the results of the analysis might vary depending on the different estimates
that are possible. For instance, in a univariate sensitivity analysis, a parameter such as a utility varied
and indicates the degree of impact this value has on the result of the global analysis. The problem is
that looking at only one single variable is not enough in most cases. That is why multivariate cost
effectiveness acceptability and sensitivity analysis curves, which observe various sources of
uncertainty at the same time and various varying conditions, are likely to generate a more accurate
estimate of cost for decision makers. (adapted from Patricia W Stone, 2002)
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There are several possible procedures to perform sensitivity analysis: sampling‐based methods,
screening based methods, variance based methods, high dimensional model representations, or even
local methods, such as the simple derivative of the output Y with respect to an input factor Xi
, where the subscript indicates that the derivative is taken at some fixed point in the
space of the input (hence the “local” in the name of the class).
Concerning mHealth, a sensitivity analysis (by overvaluing costs and underestimating benefits) can
test the cost model’s robustness. Additionally, sensitivity analysis can consider costs under different
assumptions, for instance geographical, behavioural, social and technological ones.
3. Main variables and parameters of costs
Costs are divided into three general classes: direct, indirect and intangible costs. Before
implementing a mobile health application, providers should assess its return on investment,
introducing the issue of reimbursement as third party payers, such as private or government sources,
contribute with professional fees. The theoretical framework relating to the production of health
services by HPOs is not so different from the economic framework of any run‐for‐profit private
company. Hospitals use a number of inputs (staff, hardware, medicines…) to create a series of
outputs (health).
Examples of cost and financial information needed are:
• Initial capital and investment costs (medical, video and telecommunication equipment,
software)
• Continuing operating costs of ICT (e.g. user charge of equipment for rental and maintenance,
costs of communication)
• Wages of doctors and other staff
• Education and training of the technology and update skills
• Changes to process and organisation: procurement, project management and change
management
• Costs of patients
• Costs of caregivers
• Effect on productivity of provider
• Effect on the operating expenditure of healthcare
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• Resources required for staff training, such as time and skills, and workflow rearrangement
• Key data on financial context such as reimbursement system.
• Additional and other relevant costs
• Intangible costs
• Changes to process and organisation: procurement, project management and change
management, training
a. About staffing costs
Healthcare staff can also incur notional economic costs by allocating time to mHealth development
and implementation. This can take time away from other activities, request special attention and
effort on behalf of each individual, and thus create a notional economic cost of disruption. Staffing
costs often comprise the largest component of healthcare resources. Time invested by managers,
administrators, medical professionals, health workers and clerical staff in the planning,
implementation and use of mHealth technology must be accounted for. In addition there will be staff
costs associated with running and maintaining mHealth infrastructure. Training costs are also likely to
be incurred. However, once up and running, staff cost may be reduced by mHealth. For example,
monitoring of chronic conditions using mobile phones and portable monitoring systems could reduce
the number of visits patients make to their general practitioners or specialists. Health services are
very labour intensive, so an important explanation for the cost pressure is the growth in wages of
health workers, which have not been offset by productivity increases. (adapted from Peter Wells &
al., 2006)
b. About capital costs
Capital items are clearly important in the area of mHealth. Costs will include the “hardware, system
and applications software and network/telecommunications infrastructure, as well as any capital or
equipment costs of maintenance”. In spite of this initial expenditure, the opportunity costs of capital
assets should be stretched over the time period. Depending on the viewpoint of the assessment,
costs to patients and/or costs to their relatives can also be included, both in terms of time and
money. The capital costs of equipment should be differentiated from the operational costs of service
provision. (Peter Wells & al., 2006)
39
Capital goods are defined as inputs that last for more than a year. As they are bought in one year and
used for several years more, there is a need to spread the costs over the study period. The economic
cost of using capital consists of two components: the opportunity cost of making the investment
(resources invested in its purchase that cannot be used elsewhere) and the rate at which the capital
is “used up” (commonly called depreciation). Let P be the value of the good when bought where
resale is netted out and resale nominal value be denoted by S. If K is the nominal purchase value,
then:
where r is the period interest rate and n is the period in which the capital is replaced. Assigning E as
the equivalent cost per period, we get
where
The annual costs of capital investments can be approximated by their rental price where a rental
market exists and works relatively well. But because this is often not the case, the preferred
approach is to annualize them taking into account purchase value, resale value, interest rate and
working life.
c. About social costs
The social perspective, which incorporates the total cost of resources used to provide a service
through mHealth for instance, is relevant for many public policy decisions.
Some authors seem to think mHealth will allow for a more preventive approach to healthcare,
however we don’t know if the healthcare system will be able to respond to the growth in demand for
monitoring. With technologies such as mHealth, patients are likely to expect more frequent IS/IT‐
based exchange (for example via mobile 3G services) than the economic threshold for these
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technologies allows, which may result in an increase in costs to healthcare suppliers. (adapted from
Marilyn J. Field, 1996)
It is clear that mobile phones are not the perfect and ultimate solution to solve all the predicaments
affecting the healthcare sector. Still, there are segments of healthcare where mobile phones would
deal perfectly with some of the sources of inefficiency in health care. Judgements can be made on
whether additional cost per service through mHealth is justified by an increase in some clinical or
social benefits and whether cost‐effectiveness of the application is likely to improve with further use
for larger numbers of clients.
d. About technology costs
The key technology trends in mobile technology continue to be the same trends that have
characterized ICT progress for the past 40 years: miniaturization, greater speed and cost reduction. In
a near future, mobile computing devices will continue to get cheaper and cheaper. Hand‐held
devices and mobile phones will become even more common place than they are now. Meanwhile,
disposable computing, such as RFID technology, will gain more popularity through everyday use. RFID
technology will enable wireless devices to transmit and store information at an extremely low cost.
RFID will be used notably to track people inside and outside buildings. Continuing improvements in
this technology will increase their range and decrease their power consumption, hence their cost. A
growing number of personal healthcare wireless mobile devices based on ultra‐low‐cost computer
technology are likely to appear soon on the market. (adapted from Ville Harkke, Pär Landor, 2002)
However, there are limits on the existing wireless technologies, especially the existing commercial
“M‐Health” services, including the high cost of communication links and the limitation of the existing
wireless data rates. Mobility and telepresence needed for ubiquitous healthcare will come with a
certain cost. This cost is the limitation of the wireless network: at the moment, it is expensive, has a
low bandwidth, a high latency and is not very reliable. Perhaps current available mobile technology is
not ideally suited for some of the mHealth applications that need high bandwidth and/or lower costs
for both effectiveness and sustainability. (adapted from Robert S. H. Istepanian, Swamy
Laxminarayan, Constantinos S. Pattichis, 2005)
Another technology‐related risk is the investment risk: the uncertainty surrounding the future
standards of mobile communications is a major reason for slowing down the adoption of mHealth
services and technologies. The risk of investing in a costly technology with elusive benefits has been
keeping the market waiting for the appearance of a widely recognized common standard. On the
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other hand, one must consider the still rapid evolution of some mHealth equipment and other
mobile devices, with related decrease in costs. Failure to take account of these may unreasonably
bias study results against mHealth. Mobility’s appropriateness to any given application is dependent
upon a balance of technical performance, cost and efficacy, conditions that will continue to evolve.
In developing countries, delivering Internet access to rural areas remains a major challenge. Hence,
mHealth facility based wireless infrastructure provides another valuable method of communication.
Portable, durable, and very powerful for their size, handheld computers can perform many of the
same tasks as a desktop or laptop computer at a very low cost. Handhelds function well even in
environments where electricity is only available through solar chargers, car batteries, or other
alternative sources. Novice users can quickly adopt the technology, requiring only a couple days of
training to master basic functions. Competent network and database managers require minimal
training to support the use of handheld computers for routine information dissemination and data
collection and reporting. Data and information can be shared rapidly across distances when handheld
computers are used in conjunction with the existing telecommunications infrastructure, but the
technology is also highly functional in remote locations where the telecommunications infrastructure
is unreliable. Handheld computers can bring about more rapid, accurate and cost‐effective data
collection and reporting than traditional methods. The subsequent increase in efficiency could totally
justify the cost of the PDA investment for example. (adapted from Maurice Mars & Chris Seebregts)
For instance, handheld computers are capable of delivering urgently needed health information to
the world’s poorest communities, including those where the Internet and reliable
telecommunications remain unaffordable luxuries. What must be done now is to identify cost‐
effective ICT tools to connect health professionals to each other and to vital information resources in
developing countries, use these tools to deliver content that meets their needs, and building local
capacity so that end users and technical support personnel, including network managers, database
managers, and trainers, are able to use and support the technology. There exist sufficiently
favourable conditions in Asia Pacific countries for cell phones to be a viable tool in the battle against
the digital divide. We can learn much from the successful market penetration and creative
applications of this technology as we look for ways to integrate additional tools into the continuum
of solutions for improving information access in poor countries. This continuum runs from high‐
speed, high‐bandwidth Internet connectivity on one end to the old‐fashioned “sneaker network” on
the other. In between, every option available must be explored and exploited to maximize the
potential for access while minimizing costs. Cell phones are clearly part of this continuum, as are
smart phones, memory caching systems and handheld computers. Portable, durable even in harsh
conditions, and very powerful for their size, PDAs can perform many of the same tasks as a desktop
42
or laptop computer at a fraction of the cost. While it is not a substitute for a conventional computer,
a USD 100 PDA is a workable and cost‐effective alternative, especially in under‐resourced
environments. Handheld computers notably make it possible to streamline the usually cumbersome
and costly process of data collection. (adapted from Keith MacDonald, Fran Turisco & Erica Drazen,
2003)
The text messaging transmission costs need also to be considered. For example, the more popular a
telephonic information provider service (e.g. infoline) will get, the more text messages this service
will need to send to users and the higher the message delivery charges will become. “In‐kind
donations from telecommunications providers can drive these costs down, but this strategy can also
raise questions about project sustainability”. (Sheila Kinkade for UN Foundation, 2008)
4. Typology of Healthcare stakeholders, their place in the mHealth
value chain and the cost/benefit effects of mHealth on them
To appreciate the effectiveness and sustainability of any value chain, presently the mHealth value
chain, one must first understand the participants in each link of that value chain and assess their
incentive structure as organizations. This background will enable a more sophisticated understanding
of the strengths, weaknesses and power centres within the mHealth value chain and the impact they
have on specific services delivered. More participants in the value chain means more costs to be
spread out among more organizations who need to share the return. With multiple players in the
chain, scaling becomes more difficult and may make service provision more expensive as it becomes
harder to motivate additional organizations to participate in any way to form of creative partnership.
Higher‐level incentives (whether in the form of revenue or cost efficiencies) can cause value chain
participants to consider innovative business models, product modifications or reduced pricing in
return for the benefits the program can bring. With more value chain participants and higher costs
of execution, there is less financial reward (whether in the form of profitable revenue or operational
efficiencies) to go around. It therefore becomes progressively more difficult to reach the financial
impact that gains interest and partnership with larger organizations. Minimum incentives, however,
likely will gain standard involvement, products and pricing from value chain participants. In general,
incentives for mHealth value chain participants can be categorized as cost savings, increases in
operational effectiveness, or revenue generation. The ability to demonstrate and deliver appropriate
incentives to every participant in the value chain is the essential to building a sustainable initiative.
Not all incentives are related to revenue. Cost savings is also an important incentive. But even in
these areas, the ability to demonstrate cost savings or efficiencies of time, labour, or money will rely
43
upon achieving a volume at which the start‐up and ongoing costs of the program provide a positive
return on investment. (adapted from Marion J. Ball & al., 2008)
Here we will try to identify how monetary costs and savings are distributed among particular parties.
It is important to distinguish between cost‐effectiveness for whom: society, third‐party payers,
health provider or patients? Entities such as insurers, providers, and patients bear variable portions
of total costs and reap variable amounts of any cost savings. Thus, an analysis based on a private
insurer's perspective might incorporate costs only for health care covered by the insurance plan and
exclude any uncovered expense (e.g., transportation) borne by the insured and any bad debts
absorbed by providers for patients who could not pay their share of costs. Hospitals and physician
groups would generate a somewhat different set of included and excluded costs, as would patients.
Moreover, in addition to costs for uncovered services and copayments or coinsurance, patients and
other members of the population at risk experience health effects—positive and negative. For health
plans or providers paid on a capitation basis, the perspectives of payers and providers may be
melded and reshaped as these parties assume financial responsibility for a comprehensive set of
benefits for a defined population at risk. If mHealth offers efficiencies are compared to its
alternatives, managed care plans and capitalized systems are more likely to realize these benefits and
to invest in mHealth technologies. Further, to the extent that managed care and capitalized delivery
systems encompass a broader range of services and health professionals and to the extent that they
maintain a stable enrolee population over time (which cannot be assumed), they may come closer
than traditional insurers and providers to internalizing the total costs of alternative ways of managing
medical conditions. The different stakeholders’ perspectives may prove to get really significant when
dealing with transportation costs. Benefits for the patients that are gained through reduced travel
costs and waiting time has to balanced with the increase in costs for healthcare providers. Health
care organizations, integrated delivery systems, and managed care plans may or may not internalize
the travel costs of physicians and other health professionals delivering care to people at a distance.
Within traditional fee‐for‐service payment and private indemnity insurance, it has been unusual for
plans to cover transportation of patients, except for ambulances or other special vehicles and for
emergencies. (adapted from Stefan Hakansson and Carin Gavelin, 2000)
Depending on the point of view adopted (on the one hand, a broad healthcare analysis focused on
governments, public authorities and healthcare paying organizations; on the other hand, a more
specific analysis focused on the very mHealth paradigm itself that takes more into account stakes of
privates businesses and organisms), the stakeholder mapping can vary from a generic map of
healthcare agents to a value chain analysis similar to the business concept management presented
by Michael Porter.
44
45
Direct and indirect benefit flow and accumulation (in “Methodology for evaluating the socioeconomic impact of interoperable
EHR and ePrescribing systems”, European Commission, DG INFSO & Media)
mHealth value chain from a business point of view (in Landscape Analysis of mHealth in the Global South (Vital Wave
Consulting, UN Foundation)
46
Impacts of mHealth systems are numerous and affect various stakeholders, and so their treatment
needs to be explicit in the methodology. As the inter‐connections of stakeholders in a mHealth
environment are so complex, it is important to define and record the stakeholder perspective taken
in the evaluation. In addition, an evaluation should enable comparisons of the findings of similar
cases. Thus, the structure of the mHealth cost impact assessment methodology is refined to meet
this complexity by disaggregating the various components of the evaluation. This required a
methodology that can compile costs and benefits for mHealth investment (with two main
components ICT and organizational change), as well as a framework of stakeholder groups, the
impact on which can be disaggregated in standard, comparable format. In a healthcare cost analysis,
economists should focus on the spread of capital costs over time and the potential cost savings, but
also on the costs falling on both patients and the NHS, from a multi‐stakeholder perspective.
The four main stakeholder groups are
1) Patients and other citizens
2) Healthcare staff
3) Health services provider organizations
4) Third parties (health insurance companies and other payer bodies, as well as authorities or
government organization that could be affected without having the explicit role of
reimbursing HPOs for health services)
Benefits for patients, healthcare professionals and healthcare providers have equal emphasis at the
core of the evaluation. An evaluation should enable comparisons of the findings of similar cases.
Thus, the structure of the present methodology is to be refined to meet this complexity by
disaggregating the various components of the evaluation. This requires a methodology that can
compile costs and benefits for:
• mHealth investment with two main components, ICT and organizational change
• a framework of stakeholder groups, the impact on which can be disaggregated in standard,
comparable format
a. Patients and other citizens
Citizens include people who are not patients, but have an interest in services being available for their
family now, or for themselves in the future – carers and patients. Citizens are individuals who can be
patients, carers or people who may need access to healthcare in the future. In order to be inclusive,
47
by citizens we also understand those individuals residing in a country temporarily or personally, and
not just in possession of the countries nationality. Expected benefits on patients who experience
health services that rely on modern mHealth include some of the following:
• Control over medical record, better information
• More appropriate treatment (avoidance of unnecessary interventions, adverse events etc.)
• Time (and hence, money) savings ‐ faster treatment and recovery
• Reduced Waiting Time, Travel Time and Travel Costs
• Faster rehabilitation
• Fewer visits to GPs and hospitals
• Longer life of better objective quality
Improved quality, time saving and better access are important measures of patient benefits. Many of
these factors can be measured objectively, but the list includes important subjective aspects, which
need proxy data for the estimated monetary values. Potential benefits for patients and carers need
to be set alongside their potential costs. Some patients may be covered by their third party payers,
others may have to make co‐payments or supplementary payments. It is not usual for citizens to bear
direct costs of investment in such systems. Using the term quality as an outcome indicator requires a
set of specific definitions and categories that comprise quality, which leads to a context where the
variety of instruments is huge. (adapted from Panagiotis Germanakos, Constantinos Mourlas,
George Samaras, 2005)
Mobile phones can increase the efficiency of health care provision by reducing communication costs
and thereby improving the interface between health care professionals and patients. Such
improvements may be particularly valuable where they can improve patients’ compliance with their
treatments. Reducing poor or non‐compliance provides a particularly important example of how
mobiles might help reduce the burden of disease on the health system and the economy through
better communication. Mobile phones also provide another avenue to access to health care and
health information. This may increase the demand for health care but if the consequent additional
services are cost‐effective or lead to reductions in future health care costs by improving health
outcomes, then the cost impact may be modest relative to the health benefits obtained.
A final value proposition of mobile technologies for healthcare is their apparent low cost. Certainly,
unlike many medical innovations, the cost of mobile technologies to the consumer/patient is very
small and their cost‐effectiveness very high. There are of course the capital and operational costs of
the supporting infrastructure but such costs are shared over many markets and the expansion of
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generic mobile services has produced dramatic falls in service costs; a trend that shows no signs of
abating. Indeed, as the technologies become more powerful the introduction of more innovative and
seamless applications will drive down costs even further. These effects will, as noted, also encourage
enterprises that previously had no presence in the health sector to offer value‐added products and
services. (adapted from Klaus A. Kuhn, James R. Warren, Tze‐Yun Leong, 2007)
b. Healthcare staff
Healthcare staff includes separate analyses for various types of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and
administrative staff as the most common mHealth system users. Other categories can be added for
staff whose working practices and arrangements are affected by mHealth systems, but who are not
users. These healthcare professionals and other workers can work in a wide variety of healthcare
settings, including primary care and hospitals, and then in various roles, including emergency care,
out of hours care, pharmacy advice, general and acute hospital care, and pharmacy services to
citizens. Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, and other healthcare
workers including administrative staff, can rely on a mHealth system at the point of care to achieve:
• Improved effectiveness ‐ better results of care
• Avoided unnecessary visits and examinations
• Better and more targeted drug prescriptions
• More transparency in the health system, quality control
• Achieve a better outcome for their patients
• Save time by matching the scheduling of healthcare resources to patients’ needs
• Time saved – preparation, information search, more clients
• Manage demand and be more productive
• Reductions in avoidable errors, e.g. from illegible handwriting
• Reduce the number of potential errors, and so improve risk management
• Use consistent information in designing and providing health services
• Minimise the time they spent collecting data that has already been collected
c. Health services provider organizations
Health services provider organisations can include GP practices, general hospitals, specialised
hospitals, teaching and university hospitals, and social care organisations. The acquisition and
49
implementation costs for mHealth‐related technologies tend to be significant, while their benefits do
not benefit the purchasers themselves. The HPOs that have to use complex and innovative
technologies to achieve improvements in health care are not likely to invest their scarce financial
resources without compensation, especially when they don’t get any reimbursement or direct
benefit from these investments in technologies. Public healthcare systems have only limited financial
resources to address an unlimited problem (notably the rise in demand, both in quality and quantity),
which results in strong cost constraints. (Mitchell Adams, 2003)
Following are some parameters to take into account when analysing mHealth‐based services from a
HPO point of view:
• Real, health benefits for their patients
• Improvement in the quality of service
• Improvement in the quality of access and costs for their patients
• Improvement in resource utilisation and in productivity that may incur a decrease in unit
costs
• Time needed to realise a benefit
• Financing of the ICT and organisational change
• Financial performance (will there be any profits?)
• Supplementary gains available, such as competitive advantage, extra market share, and
increased income from capturing activity more accurately and comprehensively and from
increased activity
• Existence of other ways to achieve the same returns
Organisations providing health services will be strongly affected by the introduction of mHealth
systems. On the one hand, their working environment and processes may change significantly,
leading to a number of direct benefits, such as efficiency gains. On the other hand, HPOs, especially
hospitals, are often the main drivers behind investments in eHealth systems (including mHealth
systems) and bear a large proportion of the costs. A useful approach, when taking the viewpoint of
the healthcare provider, is a breakeven analysis: the breakeven analysis considers the volume
needed for the total annual costs of the two types of services (the mHealth service and the
alternative service) to be equal. The mHealth option is likely to have higher fixed costs because of
equipment and telecommunication charges whereas the classic option has higher variable costs
because of travel and other time‐related expenditure, for example. (adapted from Bill Mc Culloch &
al, 2006)
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d. Third party payers
Third parties includes health insurance companies and other payer bodies, as well as authorities or
government organizations that could be affected without having the explicit role of reimbursing
health payers organization for health services. Healthcare and investments in mHealth systems can
be financed in a variety of ways, including:
• Public or private health insurers reimbursing healthcare provider organizations or healthcare
professionals directly
• Governments paying directly and in full, so ultimately using tax‐money
• Governments and parliaments providing grants for investment.
Whether mHealth investment is attractive for third party payers depends on factors such as the:
• Benefits for their clients and patients
• Improvements to the quality of healthcare
• Cost savings expected from new models of care
• Scope to manage demand for more costly services
• Impact on their competitive market position
• Impact of financing the investment on financial performance
mHealth costs are strongly related to patient volumes, but issues such as protocols for
reimbursement need to be resolved before large‐scale implementation is likely to be achieved. In
many countries, reimbursement for mHealth services is likely to be one of the most crucial issues
governing the potential adoption of the technique. Health insurance systems vary considerably and
the structure of these systems is likely to affect the ability and willingness of insurers to pay for
mHealth services.
5. Typology of mHealth issues depending on country’s level of
income economy
a. High income economies
In the high income economies the problem of how best to care for an ageing population increasingly
affected by the diseases consequent on affluence, probably represents the biggest challenge. Some
aspects of the care of older people will have to be moved from the hospital to the community but
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this is no easy task and good information communication through mHealth is one of the pre‐
requisites to making this change. The result, if well managed, could be both improved care and
reduced use of resources. In these countries, clinical and managerial applications are already in
place: E‐health infrastructure is in development or maturing. The priority concerns will be
applications to support emerging health priorities (long term conditions, ageing) and inter‐operability
across existing e‐health services. (W. Seabrook and A. Ruck, 2008)
However, high income economies are not the primary interest of our study as APUHC research
efforts mainly focus on the Asia Pacific region.
b. Middle and low income economies
In the middle income economies healthcare demand and costs are increasing rapidly and it is vital
that the results of the thinking on the changes that mHealth will make in communication and training
is put in place before huge investments are made in infrastructure. Such an investment could
become redundant far sooner than was expected when the project started if the effect of mHealth
on infrastructure needs is not properly considered in the planning phase. The hospital/community
care mix in the future is a critical factor in the decision making process. mHealth will influence those
decisions. Initial investments have already been made there but there is little e‐health infrastructure.
Some clinical and EHR applications have been implemented, but in major hospitals only. The main
concern there will be to know whether there is a possibility of leap‐frogging the developed countries
approach to E‐Health infrastructure, clinical applications (a model to spread across all institutions)
and applications required as part of response to emerging health priorities. (adapted from W.
Seabrook and A. Ruck, 2008)
In the low income economies, the challenge is the basic provision of healthcare and health
information, and tackling major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Affordable
communications to support both healthcare delivery and health education are major areas where
mHealth can help. Some vertical applications (often aid/grant funded to support targeted health
programmes) are already in place there but they remain scarce. The main concern for these
economies will be to determine how sustainable existing mHealth services are. A poor infrastructure
is generally considered to be a significant barrier to rapid and broad based deployment of e‐health
solutions in many developing countries. This may be due to the lack of affordability and/or
availability of secure or appropriate broad band networks, or key elements of IT infrastructure. A firm
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funding and delivery model for e‐health programmes needs to be factored into plans for new
mHealth programmes as sustainability of e‐health services could be a major problem in developing
countries. mHealth may be perceived to be impractical or low priority in the light of competing
priorities. (adapted from W. Seabrook and A. Ruck, 2008)
It is the ease and familiarity of mobile telephony that has driven the uptake of mobile services in
governance, banking, and commerce. In most countries where mBanking has been introduced, it
operates at a profit because of pricing schemes that encourage high levels of usage with lower rates.
Around the world, business, local and national governments, and development organizations are
turning to mobile technologies as a cost‐effective, high‐impact means of targeting populations
through mGovernance, mBanking and mCommerce. One‐way, outgoing text message programs are
usually inexpensive and, in some cases, free. Mobile service providers have found one‐ and two‐way
SMS to be a lucrative business and non‐profits and governments have found it to be an effective,
cost‐effective method of outreach. The messaging service, even at small volumes, might dramatically
reduce the costs and improve efficiencies of the health care provider who will no longer have to use
manual labour to remind, educate or otherwise promote certain aspects of health care with patients.
Many current mHealth programs build on the “cell phone” paradigm—services that can be delivered
to and utilized by cell phone users. Early applications involve basic data access and exchange in the
form of one‐way or basic two‐way services. The infrastructure for these applications is already in
place through standard telecommunications network services. As a result, low‐cost applications exist,
and users have widely embraced the functionality. These simple applications have the distinct
advantage of lower start‐up and operating costs as well as broader reach and an easier path to a
financially sustainable model. (adapted from Richard Adler, 2007)
Investment in mHealth can be costly. How can the developing world afford to emulate such an
approach? It cannot. It is argued that the developing world can apply the lessons learnt in the
developed world to their own setting, thereby circumventing many errors. Yet it is accepted that
developed‐world solutions are not necessarily applicable to the developing world. Furthermore,
being a relatively new entity, mHealth remains highly dynamic with new technology options and new
health applications arising rapidly. This adds to the cost, since a solution designed and implemented
“today” may become obsolete “tomorrow.” Some encourage a more sensible approach—using the
minimal amount of technology to address the defined health need, i.e. technologically appropriate
and culturally sensitive mHealth solutions. The long‐term impact of mHealth solutions is anticipated
to be great, but in the immediate future, investment in mHealth solutions will represent a cost to
health care systems, and will vie for funding with traditional health care approaches. (adapted from
Peter Wells & al., 2006)
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When evaluating and comparing various methods of data collection in low‐resource settings, there
are both quantifiable measures (the costs of acquiring equipment, the training of staff, or the hourly
costs of personnel) and intangible factors (the inconvenience of carrying large amounts of paper, the
problem of long‐term storage of data, or the caution required to protect a PDA from damage or
theft) to weigh. A return on investment (ROI) analysis which does not account for these “soft” costs
and benefits will not provide a true measure of the payback from deploying technology in resource‐
poor settings. Instead, one should consider an analysis framework that allocates the cost of the
wireless infrastructure across all the major initiatives it enables. In analysing the costs of the
application of handheld computer technology to data collection and surveys, one must recognize
that the costs of the hardware, software, and training associated with PDAs will be amortized over
many projects, while paper, printing, storage, and data entry costs are incurred with each and every
project. Additional savings can be achieved when electronic transmission of data eliminates the time
and the cost of sending staff to the field to collect completed forms or bringing surveyors to a central
site to deliver them. Similarly, much time is likely to be saved when data from the handheld is
conveyed electronically directly to a database on a central computer. This last step alone could save
days or even weeks, depending on the number of forms (records) to be entered into the database. By
eliminating delays created by data entry personnel keying each field from the accumulated forms,
significant cost savings can be realized. The exchange of information, knowledge and techniques is a
potential driver to cut the time and costs associated with the launch of a new healthcare solution.
(adapted from Sheila Kinkade for UN Foundation, 2008)
At the same time, there are many beneficial mHealth projects that can be undertaken with lower
bandwidth technologies such as mobile communications: that is why mHealth could be the
opportunity to foster dramatic changes in developing countries healthcare: planning for re‐use of
mHealth components as the basis for a national eHealth infrastructure may provide a good way
forward. Today, mHealth – understood to mean the use of mobile communication technologies at a
distance – presents a unique opportunity for the development of public health. The availability of
ultra‐low‐cost mobile telephones and broad coverage of basic GSM networks in developing countries
is a tremendous opportunity to deliver services that would help generating development and
improving citizens’ everyday lives. Using handheld computers to provide access to health information
for health workers in developing countries could result in more rapid, accurate and cost‐effective
data collection and reporting. A wireless internet mHealth infrastructure could address the challenge
for health workers to access knowledge at work and where they live. Access‐on‐demand to critical
health information need not be – indeed should not be – the prerogative of the well‐to‐do, especially
when cost‐effective solutions exist to expand that access to those in greatest need. The use of
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mHealth is becoming an efficient method of identifying and monitoring health‐related issues.
Programs using mHealth technology or based on mHealth technology in order to support the
professional development of people in the field of healthcare are becoming more and more
available. (adapted from mHealth for Development, UN Foundation, 2008)
The costs incurred to develop and deploy mobile technologies are often high for organizations: this
partly explains why the projects are of relatively small scale. Many projects are based on technology
or transmissions strongly subsidized or even on direct donations by private telecommunication
companies. Even though some players are been willing to give their services for smaller projects, one
might wonder whether bigger scaled initiatives would receive the same level of the support as cost
savings have to be significant enough to turn a pilot project into a genuine project venture. The initial
setup costs are also a prominent factor. For example, whereas the necessary hardware to gather
data is easily available, the software required is often too complex and expensive for common and
repeated use in developing countries. This is why developing countries may have to rely mainly on
free open source softwares such as EpiHandy. Plus, costs should be maintained relatively low by
employing data acquisition software that works even on cheap, basic mobile telephones.
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Chapter 4: Case Study
1. Scenario Presentation
This scenario, originally developed by Amir Talaei‐Khoei and Philipp Zuehlke, demonstrates an
example application of mobile health in the daily work of an Occupational Therapist (i.e. "a
profession concerned with promoting health and well being through occupation, whose primary goal
of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life” according
to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists). More precisely, the scenario picks out the main
part of the work of an Occupational Therapist: the assessment of patients. Important steps of the
Occupational Therapy process are initial and repeated assessments. These assessments include the
use of standardized procedures, interviews and observations in a variety of settings.
Many of the problems and risks that show up during the analysis of the occupational therapist
assessment process (e.g. illegible handwriting, own abbreviations, waste of time, difficult
collaborative work due to paperwork, security and privacy) could be addressed by integrating a
mobile health enabled device into the assessment and communication process. The health record of
the patient would be stored electronically in an EHR system in the hospital. The EHR system would be
extended by a special data set to capture the information needed for an occupational therapy case
report. The EHR would be accessible via a mobile EHR device and require some changes within the
steps of the process even though the flow of the process remains unchanged:
1. Review of the patient’s health record
2. Creation of a case report
3. Interview of the patient according to the case report card
4. Assessment of the patient
Now let’s try to find a way to compare, step by step, the direct costs of the actual paper‐based model
(using case report cards, prints out, live interviews with doctors, etc.) and the prospective mHealth
model (using mobile EHR devices), by evaluating respectively the recurrent and potential risk‐related
and waste‐of‐time‐related costs (since time is money and any risk ends up being a potential cost) of
the current process and the likely and potential costs of the mHealth‐based process.
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2. Direct costs model
a. Reminder
Variable costs are expenses that change in proportion to the activity of a business. In other words,
variable cost is the sum of marginal costs. Along with fixed costs, variable costs make up the two
components of total cost. Direct Costs, however, are costs that can be associated with a particular
cost object. Not all variable costs are direct costs: for example, overhead costs are variable costs that
are not a direct costs, but indirect costs. The direct costing or Marginal is a costing model that
includes only the variable costs (direct materials, direct labour, etc.). Here we focus on direct costs
only.
b. Actual OT paperbased assessment process
1. The OT reviews the health record of the patient.
i. The OT at first has to find the patient’s health record. The
correct health record is identified via the patient’s name and
the OT retrieves the record from the record storage. If the
patient is a new patient a new paper health record is set up.
ii. The OT might not find the patient’s health record in the
record storage, if it has not been stored properly. This results
in a loss of time and productivity. In the worst case, a new
health record might have to be created from scratch, with
the risk of incomplete information and/or a redundancy with
the original health record, creating the risk of additional
confusion.
2. A case report card is filled with information from the health record
i. The OT prints out or fetches a case report card, which is used
for assessing the patient’s condition by an OT. The OT fills
out the patient details section of the form by transferring
them from the health record.
ii. The completion of the case report card takes time.
Particularly at the beginning, information is duplicated
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unnecessarily from the medical record to the case report
card. This results in a loss of time and productivity.
3. Interview of the patient according to the case report card
i. Based on the case report card, the OT interviews the patient
for later assessment and fills missing sections of the report
card.
ii. The OT might forget to fill out some parts of the form, lose
the form or/and have an illegible handwriting (especially
when taking notes), which makes the use of case report card
extremely hard afterwards. Plus, OTs might use their own
terminology and abbreviations when filling out the case
report card. For non‐OTs or care givers of other divisions, it
can lead to misunderstandings or arouse the need of a
further inquiry, therefore increasing the cost of travel and
staff per assessed patient.
4. Feedback and assessment of the patient:
a. The OT assesses the patient and requests a consultation by a doctor.
i. After having collected all the required information, the OT is
supposedly able to make an assessment. However, the
eventual assessment and subsequent decision are done in
consultation with a doctor. For that, the OT needs to find the
doctor to consult him a person.
ii. The doctor might not be available and the OT needs to stand
by. If no doctor is available at the moment, the OT has to
wait before making any decision until a doctor is available
for consultation. This time is purely wasted. And what if the
OT deals with patients coming from a remote village or rural
area? Transportation costs would be likely to soar.
b. Eventually the doctor gives some advice to complete the
assessment.
i. The patient is either discharged or stays in hospital. In case
he has to stay in hospital, the OT and a doctor are checking
regularly the patient for any improvements. They deliberate
about current issues and necessary actions.
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ii. The collaborative work is complicated by the fact that all
information and results are stored on paper. This makes
sharing of records difficult. Asking other OTs or specialists for
consultation by sending them the case report card requires
additional time and a preceding duplication. Working on a
case report card at the same time by different OTs needs a
preceding duplication but also an additional joining. This
impedes collaborative work and lead to problems
particularly in remote areas that are characterized by a lack
of care givers and remote consultation is a necessity. The
cost of physical storage is added to the opportunity cost of
medical staff treating other patients rather than wasting
time looking for paper records.
c. Proposed mHealthbased OT assessment process
The new process operates according to the following workflow:
1. The OT reviews the health record of the patient.
i. The OT accesses the EHR‐System via the mobile EHR device
and looks up the health record via the patient’s name. If the
patient can’t be found in the system, the mobile EHR device
supports the OT in creating a new health record for this
patient. Eventually, the mobile EHR device presents a
summary of patient’s health record.
ii. The OT is sure to find the electronic health record at once
and doesn’t have to crawl in the paperwork to obtain it. The
EHR system also eliminates any risk of unnecessary health
record duplication and accelerates the creation of a new
health record if needed.
2. Creation of a case report
i. To create a new case report to assess his/her patient, the OT
selects the corresponding menu button. A new form with
pre‐filled data pops up. All data fields are automatically filled
with information out of the patient’s health record. The OT
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checks all data fields and can correct them if required. The
patient details (age, sex, contact person, telephone, etc.) can
be accessed via a link directly in the case report form.
Furthermore, the past medical history including the past
medications, the history of presenting illness of the patient is
shown to the OT.
ii. With the new mobile EHR‐System, the OT can be encouraged
not to use his/her own personal terminology, when a
standard terminology is supported by the mobile EHR‐
System. The time for the initial completion of the case report
header and personal details section is greatly reduced.
3. Interview of the patient according to the case report card
i. Based on the case report card accessible via the mobile
device, the OT interviews the patient for later assessment
and fills missing sections directly on his/her handheld.
ii. The OT does not waste any time anymore for copying
information from the health record into the case report.
Using the mobile EHR‐System, the OT does not use his/her
handwriting anymore. Therefore the handwriting illegibility
issue has been solved and the interview can be run faster
and more smoothly.
4. Feedback and assessment of the patient:
a. The OT assesses the patient and requests a consultation by a doctor.
i. After having collected all the required information, the OT is
supposedly able to make an assessment. However, the
eventual assessment and subsequent decision are still done
in consultation with a doctor. To do so, the OT selects the
created case report and chooses the option “Consultation”.
In a next step he chooses the relevant doctor and the mobile
EHR system transfers the case report to the doctor’s mobile
EHR device. The doctor gets notified and can have look on
the collected data in the case report. Finally he answers to
the OT directly via the mobile device.
ii. This even works, when the OT works in a rural hospital and
needs consultation of a specialist who is located several
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hundred kilometres away in a big city. The mHealth solution
virtually eliminates every transportation need and speeds up
the whole consultation process, generating time savings and
decreasing transportation costs.
b. Eventually the doctor gives some advice to complete the
assessment.
i. The patient is either discharged or stays in hospital. In case
he has to stay in hospital, the OT and a doctor are checking
regularly the patient for any improvements. They deliberate
about current issues and necessary actions.
ii. The case report is now stored in a central server and can be
accessed and shared by several people at the same time. The
OT can easily consult with other OTs or doctors to get their
opinion by sending them the case report. Especially in
remote areas this has a huge advantage. The doctor does not
need to be at the same place as the OT to make a
consultation. This even enables the consultation with
specialists that do live in urban areas and consequently raise
the quality of health care. Interconnecting all OTs and
doctors into a ubiquitous wireless hub creates a network
effect that cuts costs due to latency and geographical
remoteness. Besides, thanks to the use of electronic backup
tools, the loss of data becomes less likely, which eliminates
the potential cost associated with paper storage
deterioration.
d. Tentative direct cost analysis model
Here we will try to conceptualize (simulate with a mathematical model) the global sum of all the
direct costs related to the paper‐based OT assessment workflow on the one hand and the direct
costs related to the mHealth OT assessment workflow on the other hand, so as to establish a
comparison between these two. The difference between direct costs and indirect costs is direct costs
are traced to the cost object whereas indirect costs are only allocated (by a managerial decision) to
the cost object.
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We chose to focus on direct costs only in order to eliminate the influence of indirect allocated
expenses and focus on the two main direct cost components: direct labour and direct supplies
(subdivided into direct fixed supplies, direct fixed labour, direct variable supplies, and direct variable
labour). The following analysis will be carried on the basis of profitability. This is where cost
accounting comes in handy. Since we deal only with direct costs and not overhead costs, activity‐
based costing and RVU (Relative Value Units) costing are out of question: our approach tends more
to be process costing, which accumulates costs by a process for a given period.
Let Fp be the function representing the global sum of all the direct costs related to the paper‐based
OT assessment workflow and Fm be the function representing the global sum of all the direct costs
related to the mHealth OT assessment workflow (for a decomposition of costs according to the
category of stakeholder, please refer to the chapter “Typology of Healthcare stakeholders, their
place in the mHealth value chain and the cost/benefit effects of mHealth on them”). Each of these
functions includes variables (inputs) and parameters (i.e., coefficients, auxiliary measures that define
certain characteristics of systems or functions, which can be modified in a sensitivity analysis for
instance). In order to make the comparison, 2 groups should be constituted: the control/usual care
group (whose total cost of care is represented by the output of the function Fp) and the
intervention/treatment group (whose total cost of care is represented by the output of the function
Fm). In our case, the main variable is the number of OT consultations (i.e. OT cases treated) done
with/without the support of mHealth technologies. We could call it “t” since it is somehow time‐
related (as time goes on, more and more OT consultations have been made).
The cost function is a function whose parameters are the given output level (in our case health) and
the given factor prices (listed below). The purpose of microeconomic analysis is to determine the
combination of factor prices (for instance, the process/technological model) that minimizes
healthcare cost while maintaining the same level of output. Here our approach is slightly different:
we try to assess which combination of factor prices (i.e. which OT process) is the least costly while
assuming the mHealth “combination” is as least as effective as the paper‐based one. This
combination of price factors can be described as a vector of factor prices (or price parameters).
Basically, any OT healthcare cost function should include the following parameters (the current list is
not comprehensive but aims at providing the main parameters influencing OT‐related costs), using
various techniques such as the travel cost method (here, TBD stands for “To Be Determined”):
• Travelling costs for OT (time and distance related) per consultation Î TBD (a)
• The fixed capital start‐up costs (nil in the case no mHealth technology is implemented) Î
TBD (bm)
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• Staff/Labour costs:
o The associated workload for OT and doctors in FTE (the workload associated with the
recurrent losses of time with the old paper system, but also the initial workload
associated with the mHealth training) per consultation. The number of hours worked
is used as a quantity index for labour. Î TBD (cp or cm)
o The wage costs of both OT and doctors per FTE Î TBD (d)
• Costs of communication per consultation, should it be electronic or through paper and face‐
to‐face interview, both between the OT and the patient and then the OT and the doctor Î
TBD (em or ep)
• Costs of data storage per consultation, should it be on hard copy or digital Î TBD (fp or fm)
• Hospital stays cost:
o Average number of days a consulted patient stays in the hospital, depending on
which solution is used (mHealth solution or paper‐based solution) Î TBD (gp or gm)
o Costs of admission/staying of a consulted patient into the hospital (per day)
(including medicine, food, medical supplies, administrative costs, energy)Î TBD (h)
• Decrease in medical expenses for patients (per consultation) due to increased efficiency of
healthcare Î TBD (im)
• ...
• And so on (basically an aggregation of all remaining cost categories) Î TBD (?)
Additional cost information can be found in the chapter "Main variables and parameters of costs".
So as to as to keep the difference in costs statistically significant, the equal overhead costs are
similarly eliminated on both sides of the analysis (paper‐based control group and mHealth
intervention group). Through the use of several given sets of variables and coefficients in both
groups, subtracting Fm from Fp will enable us to calculate the exact (if any) monetary medical
expenditure reduced by mHealth given a certain volume of use (in terms of number of consultations),
or to determine the volume of use needed to reach the breakeven point (i.e. the number of
consultations from where Fm <= Fp). Performing this kind of payback analysis‐like will help us to
determine the amount of demand needed to make the mHealth solution less expensive than the
actual paper‐based solution (using the number of consultations as a proxy for the demand variable).
Since we focus on direct costs here, using the ICER (Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio) would be
sort of restrictive since the ICER also accounts for benefits achieved thanks to a new health solution,
not only for the cost savings. Basically, using the ICER in our direct cost‐focused case study would
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amount to consider the effect of the control group as nil (since nothing is done, there is no effect, no
cost effect either), and to consider the effect of the intervention group as the cost savings only.
For simplicity reasons, we will assume our direct cost function is linear, i.e. a first‐degree polynomial
function of one variable, in our case, the number of uses: since the number of uses is necessarily
discrete, the cost function could have been a progression or a sequence, however we chose to stick
to the function model in order to allow our main variable to be replaced by any continuum, such as
time (relying on the trivial assumption that the number of consultations done grows as time goes
on). Therefore, let’s assume that t belongs to +. Assuming our direct cost function is linear will
make the job easier (basically saying that “Total Cost = Fixed Costs + Variable Costs * The Variable
Itself), but will not reflect faithfully benefits such as experience gains and productivity improvements
along the studied time period (this is why we dwell on another potential method later on). For any t
in +, assuming the cost function is linear, we shall define Fm (t) and Fp(t) as the following:
Fm (t) = bm + a * t + cm * d * t + em* t + fm* t + em* t + gm* h * t ‐ im * t
Fm (t) = bm + t * (a + cm * d + em + fm + gm *h ‐ im)
and
Fp(t) = a* t + cp * d * t + ep* t + fp* t + ep* t + gp* h * t
Fp(t) = t * (a + cp * d + ep + fp + gp *h)
Thus
Fm (t) ‐ Fp(t) = bm + t * (a + cm * d + em + fm + gm *h ‐ im) ‐ t * (a + cp * d + ep + fp + gp *h)
Fm (t) ‐ Fp(t) = bm + t *(d *[cm ‐ cp] +[em ‐ ep] + [fm ‐ fp] + h *( [gm ‐ gp] ‐ im)
As a consequence,
Fm (t) ‐ Fp(t) >= 0 Ù bm + t *(d *[cm ‐ cp] +[em ‐ ep] + [fm ‐ fp] + h *( [gm ‐ gp] ‐ im) >= 0
Fm (t) ‐ Fp(t) >= 0 Ù t >= ‐ bm / (d *[cm ‐ cp] +[em ‐ ep] + [fm ‐ fp] + h *( [gm ‐ gp] ‐ im)
(assuming the expression between brackets is positive so as to keep the same inequality)
We infer from the equation above that our analysis will have to focus on the fixed start up costs for
the mHealth solution and the difference in communication costs, workload, data storage costs,
number of days a consulted patient stays in hospital, let alone the hypothetic decrease in medical
expenses for patients (per consultation) due to increased efficiency of healthcare (im).
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Once these formulas have been used, we could also use a linear regression technique to assess the
correlation between the use of mHealth and the cost of OT interventions on a given period of time.
From the tradition of using cost functions to explain observed variations in unit costs, we could
estimate a long‐run cost‐function using an OLS (ordinary Least Squares regression analysis). The
regression equation deals with the following variables: the unknown parameters denoted as β (some
of the costs listed above, for instance; this set of unknown parameters may be a scalar or a vector),
the independent variable, t, and the dependent variable, C (the unit cost for OT intervention). The
model for estimation (one‐way fixed effect model) would look like this (respectively without and with
mHealth):
The regression analysis provides the tools for finding a solution for unknown parameters β that will,
for instance, minimize the distance between the questionnaire‐measured and formula‐predicted
values of the dependent variable C (this method is also known as the method of least squares) and
providing statistical information about the unknown parameters β and predicted values of the
dependent variable C. We note that β contains several dummy variables (such as sex, age, education,
working, family situation, income, type of disease, etc.) that act as “switches”, that is to say that take
the values 0 or 1 to indicate the absence or presence of some categorical effect that may be
expected to shift the cost outcome. We would be likely to use “unit cost” (cost per OT consultation)
as the dependent variable for an ordinary least squares regression analysis rather than the total cost
so as to avoid the greater error terms caused by non‐uniform variance in the computed regression,
since the error term could be correlated with the size of the healthcare service.
The problem with the first model proposed above is that the relationship between costs per OT
consultation (the dependent variable) and all the other variables (the explanatory variables) are
expected to be non‐linear, so in the end we are likely to have to approximate the normal distribution
of the model variables by employing some kind of transformation (such as the logarithmic functional
form) throughout the use of a linear regression. For instance, since we do not know yet the elasticity
of the unit cost of an OT patient, we could use the translog function (i.e. the transcendental
logarithmic function, basically a generalization of the Cobb‐Douglas production function) as a second‐
order approximation to the previous functional form without any prior restriction on estimated
elasticity. If C is the optimized cost, the translog cost function could be expressed as:
ln C = ln b0 + ∑ (i=1 to n) bi ln (wi) + ½ ∑i ∑j gi,j ln (wi) ln (wj) + by ln (y) + ½ gy,y (ln y)² + ∑i gi,y ln (wi y) + ½ gt,tt²
+ ∑i gi,t ln (wi t) where y is the output, t the time variable, g & w input prices.
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Furthermore, since this analysis is oriented straight‐forward to direct cost assessment, it doesn’t
account for non‐monetary benefits achieved throughout the implementation of mHealth in the
occupational therapy workflow, such as less anxiety in day‐to‐day life, enhanced consciousness
towards health... Thus ignoring some of the multidimensional aspects of the output provided by
hospitals.
3. Questionnaire
Based on the cost model presented earlier, here are some evaluation questions for comparing
mobile health to alternative health services:
• How much time do OT spend travelling to the hospital respectively with and without the
mHealth solution?
• What are the fixed capital start‐up costs for the mHealth solution?
• Staff costs:
o What are the associated workload for OT and doctors in FTE per consultation of the
mHealth solution compared to the paper‐based alternative (in terms of initial
training time opposed to recurrent losses of time)?
o What are the wage costs of both OT and doctors (per FTE)?
• What are the costs of communication both between the OT and the patient and then the OT
and the doctor (with both methods: using the mHealth solution or relying on paper and face‐
to‐face interviews)?
• What are the costs of data storage of the mHealth solution compared to the paper‐based
alternative?
• What are the costs of admission of a patient into the hospital (per day) (including medicine,
food, medical supplies, administrative costs, energy)?
• In average, how many days a OT‐consulted patient stays in the hospital (in both cases: using
the mHealth solution or sticking to the paper‐based actual one)?
• What is the decrease in medical expenses for patients due to the (supposed) increased
efficiency of healthcare achieved throughout the implementation of mHealth?
• What are the costs of the mHealth solution for participating health care providers or health
plans compared to the paper‐based alternative?
66
• Is the mHealth solution implementation associated with differences in attending clinicians'
costs for personnel, equipment, supplies, administrative services, travel, or other items? Is
the mHealth solution implementation associated with differences in revenues or
productivity? What is the net effect?
• Is the mHealth solution associated with differences in consulting clinicians' or consulting
organizations' costs for personnel, equipment, supplies, space, administrative services,
travel, or other items? Is the mHealth solution associated with differences in revenues or
productivity? What is the net effect?
• Is the mHealth solution associated with differences in the cost per service, per episode of
illness, or per member per month?
• What are the costs of the mHealth solution for patients and families compared to the paper‐
based alternative?
• Is the mHealth solution associated with differences in direct medical costs for patients or
families?
• Is the mHealth solution associated with differences for patients or families in other direct
costs (e.g., travel, child care) or indirect costs (e.g., lost work days)?
• What are the costs of the mHealth solution for society overall compared to the paper‐based
alternative?
• Is the mHealth solution associated with differences in total health care costs, the cost per
service, per episode of illness, or per capita?
• How do the costs of the mHealth solution relate to the benefits of the mHealth solution
compared to the paper‐based alternative?
NOTE: Each question assumes that an analysis of results will control for or take into account severity
of illness, co‐morbidities, demographic characteristics, and other relevant factors. The reader should
note a significant sample size is needed in order to put the model’s realism to the test and the
assessment should be led on a significant period of time (at least one year) in order to provide a firm
and reliable analysis.
This type of questionnaire should be sent primarily to occupational therapists, but also to the doctors
who often work with occupational therapists.
67
The following table could also be used to collect results on cost‐effectiveness indicators:
TOTAL
EXPECTED IMPACT IMPACT IN THE EXPECTED DIRECTION
EFFECTIVENESS INDICATORS NUMBER OF
WITH THIS PROJECT
CASES STUDIED
YES NO Not specified
DIRECT COSTS
Remuneration of professionals: visit time Reduction
Remuneration of professionals: travel/driving time Reduction
Remuneration of professionals: telephone intervention Increase
Remuneration and cost of technical support Increase
Traveling expenses for the professionals Reduction
ER cost Reduction
Hospitalization costs Reduction
Readmission costs Reduction Reduction
Software licenses Increase
Purchase of equipment Increase
Installation, support and maintenance of equipment Increase
INDIRECT COSTS
Lost productivity for patient and relatives Reduction
Traveling expenses for the patient Reduction
Insurance, supplies, administrative costs Reduction
Miscellaneous costs No impact expected
TOTAL COSTS Reduction
COST PER PATIENT Reduction
COST PER VISIT Reduction
(Adapted from “A Systematic Review of the Key Indicators for Assessing Telehomecare Cost‐Effectiveness”, Stephanie
Vergara Rojas, 2008)
Another potential approach would be to build an interactive financial spreadsheet that would allow a
hospital financial analyst to model different scenarios, with a workbook including to input direct
projected revenue, indirect revenue, expenses (telecommunication, medical and capital outlay) and
get financial data such as the internal rate of return, the payback period and the breakeven point.
(adapted from Michael J. McCue, 2006)
68
Chapter 5: Conclusions
1. Summary
The main challenge of economic evaluation of mHealth is that it is not an exact science. As far as the
comparability and representativeness of results analysed in the studies found are concerned, it is
hard to establish a global “average performing” indicator. Based on our methodology review, we’ve
seen the development of new ICT economic assessment methodologies for healthcare is required, as
current methods cannot precisely estimate the economic and social costs induced by the
implementation of ICTS in a healthcare environment. We need new methods to address the barriers
to ICT implementation and toolkits to promote their use in healthcare delivery environments.
The point is not to argue whether mHealth in itself is a worthwhile investment, because its value is
linked to the way, place and time the technology itself is used. The real question to ask is: is mHealth
the right investment in a precise context, in comparison with one or more alternative(s). Ideally, an
evaluation should specify the full range of actual alternatives, so that the results are relevant to the
decisions that people face. It makes little sense to talk about cost effectiveness of mHealth in
general. One must be more specific about which use and in which setting. The impact of any new
technology on healthcare cost will depend on who is using it, how skilfully they are using it and what
they wish to accomplish with it. The technology itself, no matter how promising, will not secure any
of these benefits. If this technology is imposed on physicians and patients by facility or plan
managers to increase market share or control costs, it will be neither enthusiastically accepted nor
effectively used. The costs and benefits will depend upon who is using the system, and the purpose
for which it is being used, not the technology itself.
What can be foreseen already is the development towards an investment analysis method for
realistically assessing the business perspective of investments in tomorrow’s mHealth services. For
sure, successful mHealth implementation needs sustained investments and also sustained financing,
whereas most of its results will not be purely financial (quality, risk reduction, and efficiency): if
mHealth is likely to enable improved cost efficiency, it generates little extra cash. Benefits are far too
often associated with cash, not cost savings.
The challenge is to ensure that the total investment matches an appropriate total economic benefit.
In this respect, it is important to treat mHealth investment in the same way as other new
69
investments in healthcare, such as new drugs and surgical techniques. It should not be a means of
saving money and improving overall cash flow, but an investment in better healthcare. Sustainable
mHealth investment requires that all decision takers and financial stakeholders are clear about the
distinction between economic benefits and financial savings, and the impact of each mHealth
investment on future cash flows when decisions are taken.
This report takes place in the first phase of the global longitudinal study on the assessment of mobile
health, that is to say the qualitative and quantitative pre‐study before the use of mHealth. We should
remember that time is needed for mHealth development; the temporal dimension of the study must
not be ignored. Usually, new ICT are costlier in the first steps of implementation. The rate of use is a
decisive factor in the cost efficiency of mHealth projects, as it tends to be low in the deployment
phase. Therefore, long term analyses have to be planned ahead of time to provide stakeholders with
a comprehensive view of all the costs (both planned and unplanned) and benefits of different
healthcare ICTs. There are three main time periods, development, implementation and operation,
which can overlap and need to be reflected in the evaluation. The appropriate timescales for analysis
extend well beyond the business and financial planning of most national health agencies and HPOs
and can present financing challenges for mHealth. The mHealth investment lifecycle should be set by
the time needed to realise the required net benefit. Longer‐term economic evaluation, hardly
considered as yet for mHealth, would provide appraisal of health outcomes and macro‐economic
impact on services throughout the health‐care system. Such evaluation would take account of the
evolution of technology and health‐care systems, as both the effects of the mHealth application and
the policy needs change. Data requirements and logistics for such longer‐term economic appraisal
would be demanding. We can guesstimate costs are likely to surpass benefits at the beginning
whereas benefits would emerge on the long run. On a larger timescale, reusability, portability and
affordability of wireless ICTS for preventive care and patient surveillance and are likely to cut the
global expenditures in healthcare.
70
2. Limitations and future work
Due to the lack of time (barely 6 weeks of study at my disposal) and means (no field study could be
led in the present conditions, within this time frame), I had no choice but to focus on qualitative
analysis based on secondary data, trying to provide some relevant parameters of a cost model
framework yet to be designed based on a quick review of the existing literature in health economics
and a brief beginning of a case study. As a result, this paper is neither a complete precise case study
nor a global complete thesis but should be considered as a tentative pre‐study that might prove
useful for information systems and computer science specialists without economic science
background, or even as a beacon for future searchers willing to cross information science and
economics science in one comprehensive and multi‐disciplinary approach to assess the global impact
of mHealth in all its dimensions. Alongside with the literature review and explanation of the main
concepts used in health economics, the “mini‐case study” might also prove useful to design a
questionnaire that would enable scholars to collect more data about mHealth cost impact. Though,
further more scientific and well designed studies are still required.
Researchers interested in the mHealth paradigm must now develop and apply quantitative methods
and statistics to assess mobile wireless health care costs, combining econometrics with statistics to
determine the financial link between mHealth implementation and cost reduction, keeping in sight
related technological and societal issues geographically relevant to the context of observation (e. g.
level of development achieved). Besides, the very nature of econometrics and of the data available
(rather observational than derived from controlled experiments) will have to been considered when
crossing the cost impact study results with other findings, notably the cum hoc ergo propter hoc
quandary: future econometric studies will have to go beyond mere statistical correlation and assess
the very causation, for instance by developing an economic simulation model based on the Markov
chain approach, while bearing in mind that cause and effect cannot be always directly assigned in
mHealth applications, but have to rely on reasonable judgements.
Health economics is still in its infancy, and must be allowed sufficient flexibility to develop in a
number of directions. Besides, one should also keep in mind economic evaluation is a broad church
and that even in a context of ever‐rising healthcare costs, clinical effectiveness and quality of life
prevail over any other consideration, including cost effectiveness. mHealth is far too important to be
impeded by such prosaic arguments.
71
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