What is it about?

We added a telephone coaching program into routine hospital care. Adding health promotion programs comes at an additional cost to the health system. This paper outlines the cost to conduct this work, and the financial implications of adding this service to hospital care.

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Why is it important?

The individuals that participated in the telephone coaching improved physical activity, weight, BMI and quality-of-life. The findings also show that although adding a telephone coaching program into routine hospital care requires an upfront investment of money, the people that participated in the telephone coaching had lower healthcare costs at the end of the study. Research that shows health benefits and overall cost-savings are uncommon and telephone coaching offers a potentially cost-effective investment to produce important public health outcomes.

Perspectives

I'm excited to be able to share the findings from this research which looked at the economic impacts of implementing health promotion programs into hospital care. I hope this article allows people to understand the broader economic implications of adding preventive health practice to hospital care, and hopefully it underscores the value of undertaking economic evaluations alongside trials. How healthcare money is spent is an important issue for everyone, and hopefully this article stimulates thought on the potential value of preventive health in hospital care.

Stephen Barrett
Bendigo Health

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Physical activity telephone coaching intervention for insufficiently physically active ambulatory hospital patients: Economic evaluation of the Healthy 4U-2 randomised controlled trial, PLoS ONE, June 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270211.
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