Economic evaluation of Manitoba Health Lines in the management of congestive heart failure.

Objective: This one-year study investigated whether the Manitoba Provincial Health Contact program for congestive heart failure (CHF) is a cost-effective intervention relative to the standard treatment.

Design: Individual patient-level, randomized clinical trial of cost-effective model using data from the Health Research Data Repository at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, University of Manitoba.

Methods: A total of 179 patients aged 40 and over with a diagnosis of CHF levels II to IV were recruited from Winnipeg and Central Manitoba and randomized into three treatment groups: one receiving standard care, a second receiving Health Lines (HL) intervention and a third receiving Health Lines intervention plus in-house monitoring (HLM). A cost-effectiveness study was conducted in which outcomes were measured in terms of QALYs derived from the SF-36 and costs using 2005 Canadian dollars. Costs included intervention and healthcare utilization. Bootstrap-resampled incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were computed to take into account the uncertainty related to small sample size.

Results: The total per-patient mean costs (including intervention cost) were not significantly different between study groups. Both interventions (HL and HLM) cost less and are more effective than standard care, with HL able to produce an additional QALY relative to HLM for $2,975. The sensitivity analysis revealed that there is an 85.8% probability that HL is cost-effective if decision-makers are willing to pay $50,000.

Conclusion: Findings demonstrate that the HL intervention from the Manitoba Provincial Health Contact program for CHF is an optimal intervention strategy for CHF management compared to standard care and HLM.