Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Aug 21, 2024)
Date Submitted: Jun 7, 2024
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Evaluating the cost of Telerehabilitation versus Traditional In-person rehabilitation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Telerehabilitation services provide numerous advantages such as better patient outcomes, lower healthcare costs, enhanced access to care, and improved patient satisfaction. Telerehabilitation minimizes the need for expensive equipment, yet evidence quantifying its benefits remains insufficient.
Objective:
The present study intends to systematically summarize previous research on the total and average costs of telerehabilitation and the barriers to implementing telerehabilitation programs.
Methods:
We searched PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and the OVID Library databases retrieving 3858 records. Economic Evaluation Metrics like currency reported in the study were converted to USD (2023) for standardization and types of costs measured (direct and indirect) were extracted from 21 studies. The meta-analysis was conducted for 14 studies using the meta package in R.
Results:
We included 21 studies (19,690 patients) in our systematic review, while only 14 were included in the pooled analysis. Many studies reported no significant differences between the telerehabilitation and control groups, but the combined effect estimate showed significant differences in terms of the total and average costs with the mean difference of 71.92 US dollars.
Conclusions:
The study showed lower cost for telerehabilitation than in controls. Telerehabilitation can be an effective alternative to traditional rehabilitation therapy, particularly in remote or underserved locations. Larger studies are needed to assess the ongoing developments in telerehabilitation.
Citation
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Copyright
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