A Novel Economic Analysis Applied to Innovative Diabetes Digital Health Intervention Demonstrates Significant Financial Benefits

Abstract

The healthcare industry has had limited success in translating the value of innovative diabetes interventions into true economic return on investment. Our objective was to determine the value of improving diabetes outcomes and then to apply those values to the utilization of a digital health tool, BlueStar™. The analysis was conducted using the MarketScan® Research Databases owned by Truven Health Analytics®, part of IBM Watson Health™. These research data sets fully integrate de-identified patient-level health data, productivity, laboratory results, health risk assessments, hospital discharges, electronic medical records (EMR) and morbidity data into data available for research. Data are contributed by large employers, managed care organizations, hospitals, EMR providers, and Medicare and Medicaid programs. A complex algorithm was applied to the MarketScan data, resulting in quantified total costs broken down by A1C. We examined two population segments: commercial (age 40-64, n=2,320) and Medicare (age 65+, n=821). Cost estimates could thus directly be applied from the tables derived from the database to the A1C reductions associated with the BlueStar population of users, demonstrating significant cost savings associated with the use of BlueStar™.Healthcare Costs by A1C Band for Commercial and Medicare PopulationsCommercial PopulationMedicare PopulationA1C BandPercentage in BandAnnual Cost Per PatientPercentage in BandAnnual Cost Per Patient<7%30%$13,08042%$11,6537%-8%34%$14,29835%$13,7868%-9%16%$15,03614%$16,726>9%20%$19,9809%$17,036 Disclosure M. Shomali: Consultant; Self; WellDoc, Inc. A.K. Iyer: Employee; Self; WellDoc, Inc. B.T. Griffin: Other Relationship; Self; WellDoc, Inc. M. Peeples: Employee; Self; WellDoc, Inc..