Work package 11: Health economics and social impact

Lead: University of Eastern Finland

 

Novel methods for early diagnosis and targeted treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) contain a great potentiality for being very beneficial for patients and for the whole society. In order to prevent adverse effects related to OSA, the new technology should be targeted so that correct patient group will be diagnosed early and the treatment will be administrated to those who are in need. 

 

In this work package, we are interested in the potential monetary benefits of adequate treatment of OSA at the society level. The challenge in estimating societal benefits is that the direct costs for the treatment of OSA represent only a minor part of the total costs and the actual benefits can be seen in the reduced number of long-term adverse effects. 

 

We will study these issues by conducting a systematic literature review on long-term costs of OSA first so that we get updated data on the consequences of OSA that need to be considered. Next, we will calculate what is the price of these consequences and which part appears to be attributable to OSA. We will use real-world data on comprehensive patient populations to do that. 

 

The real-world data also shows the realized treatment pathways of OSA patients. We will then use simulation to examine what kind of cost-benefits can be achieved by using new technology or other interventions on the patient population. This allows us also to estimate the potential cost-benefits of the interventions implemented in work packages 8-10. 

 

To make the results of cost calculations and simulations even more practical, we will also build an interactive tool for projecting the burden of OSA and cost-benefits of the interventions. The idea is that the tool could show what will the consequences be in different EU-countries. 

 

These calculations are important for the whole project as we will show, by utilizing real-world data and simulations, how much the society and government within Europe can reduce OSA-related indirect and direct costs by diagnosing and treating the correct patient group timely efficiently, and in patient-specific manner. 

 

Participants: