A longitudinal study of health service utilization for diabetes patients in a care coordination home-telehealth programme

Abstract

We assessed the effects of a care coordination home-telehealth (CCHT) programme on health service utilization. The subjects (n = 387 for each group) were US veterans diagnosed with diabetes and followed for 48 months. The service utilization measures were numbers of all-cause inpatient stays and outpatient visits during the follow-up period. We used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the adjusted effects of the CCHT programme on service use over time. Compared with the controls, the CCHT clients were less likely to be admitted for inpatient care during the first (P < 0.001) and second (P < 0.01) six-month follow-up period, and were consistently more likely to visit outpatient clinics (P < 0.001) during the whole 48-month follow-up period. The likelihood of increase in outpatient utilization tended to decline over time. The findings suggest that the CCHT programme helped to reduce overall inpatient and outpatient use by the clients over the 48-month follow-up period.