The cost-effectiveness of nurse-led self-care interventions in patients with heart failure

Abstract

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Nurse-led self-care interventions (NLSCI) in heart failure (HF), defined as the nurse education delivered to improve the daily patient self-management, are not widely adopted by the health-care systems, even though they are effective to improve outcomes (e.g., mortality, readmission). Moreover, few studies have evaluated whether NLSCI are also cost-effective. Purpose To determine the cost-effectiveness of NLSCI in the context of HF care compared with standard care (care delivered by general practitioner and/or cardiologist). Methods We performed a cost-effectiveness analysis, with a 20-year time horizon, from the perspective of the Italian National Health Service. We developed a Markov model to simulate the progression of a cohort of 1,000 HF patients aged 70 years, who were assumed to alternatively receive a NLSCI after hospital discharge, or usual care. Effectiveness on mortality and on hospitalizations of NLSCI and usual care were extrapolated from a review of randomized control trials. Health-care costs were derived from literature and national formularies. The differences in costs and the differences in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) between the NLSCI and usual care were estimated to present an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). A willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of €40,000 per QALY was considered. Probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the robustness of results and to estimate a cost-effectiveness acceptability curve. Results Over the 20-year time horizon, NLSCI implied an extra cost of € 1.3 million and a gain of 247 QALYs compared to usual care. This resulted in an ICER of € 5,490/QALY, which is far below the €40,000/QALY WTP threshold. Sensitivity analysis showed that the ICER remains below the WTP threshold in 100% of simulations. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve showed a probability of 80% of being under € 7,500/QALY. Conclusions This study demonstrated that NLSCI represent an affordable solution to support patients with HF as the related extra costs of € 1.3 million is justified by the reduction in mortality and improvement in quality of life. This finding supports the promotion of NLSCI as part of routine care, in order to pursue an optimal allocation of public health expenditures.