Benefits of Home-Based Solutions for Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Coronary Syndromes on Health Care Costs: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Diagnosing and treating acute coronary syndromes consumes a significant fraction of the healthcare budget worldwide. The pressure on resources is expected to increase with the continuing rise of cardiovascular disease, other chronic diseases and extended life expectancy, while expenditure is constrained. The objective of this review is to assess if home-based solutions for measuring chemical cardiac biomarkers can mitigate or reduce the continued rise in the costs of ACS treatment. A systematic review was performed considering published literature in several relevant public databases (i.e., PUBMED, Cochrane, Embase and Scopus) focusing on current biomarker practices in high-risk patients, their cost-effectiveness and the clinical evidence and feasibility of implementation. Out of 26,000 references screened, 86 met the inclusion criteria after independent full-text review. Current clinical evidence highlights that home-based solutions implemented in primary and secondary prevention reduce health care costs by earlier diagnosis, improved patient outcomes and quality of life, as well as by avoidance of unnecessary use of resources. Economical evidence suggests their potential to reduce health care costs if the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio or the willingness-to-pay does not surpass £20,000/QALY or €50,000 limit per 20,000 patients, respectively. The cost-effectiveness of these solutions increases when applied to high-risk patients.

Development of a New Detection Algorithm to Identify Acute Coronary Syndrome Using Electrochemical Biosensors for Real-World Long-Term Monitoring

“…Regrettably, this has a greater impact on high-risk patients (e.g., diabetic patients, chronic kidney disease patients, elderly patients and heart failure patients) which demand a rapid and secure diagnosis and it might not be achievable due to abnormal baseline values or even because of asymptomatic conditions. Using personalized data acquire from minimally invasive wearable solutions can overcome these inconveniences and save health care expenditure by reducing the event to diagnosis time delay, crucial in this time-dependent life-threatening scenario, and the use of unnecessary resources [ 5 ].…”

“…A potential solution to mitigate such impact could be the clinical implementation of telemonitoring strategies capable of precisely measuring levels of key cardiac biomarkers [ 5 ]. In the recent past, there has been a growing interest in developing minimally invasive wearable devices based on different biosensors (e.g., optical, electrochemical and magnetic) [ 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”