Correction to: Health-economic evaluation of home telemonitoring for COPD in Germany: evidence from a large population-based cohort

Correction to: Eur J Health Econ (2017) 18:869–882 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-016-0834-x

In the original article, the observation period for a small share of the control group was misspecified and led to increased hospital costs and increased inpatient utilization in the control group. We thus redefined the index date for the control group to the date of invitation by the sickness fund to participate in the program (index date is now patient-specific for both groups).

Minor corrections apply to the sample descriptives (Fig. 1, Table 1, Table A1) as the analysis now comprised 651 telemonitoring participants and 7079 individuals in the standard care group. Main changes apply to the abovementioned parameters (see Table 2) as telemonitoring no longer reduced total costs compared to standard care but is cost neutral (ATT: €82.82, p > 0.05). The main driver was hospitalisation costs (ATT: − €158.50, p > 0.1). Telemonitoring enrolees used healthcare (all-cause and COPD-related) equally intensely yet with a tendency for shorter hospital stays (− 1.00 days, p = 0.052). The mortality hazard ratio remained lower in the intervention arm (HR 0.48, 95% CI 0.29–0.81). Dividing the cohort into mild/ moderate COPD (FEV₁ ≥ 50%) and into severe/ very severe COPD (FEV₁ < 50%) shows a tendency for costs savings in the less sick subgroup (mild/moderate: − €403.19, p = 0.542; severe/very severe: €391.38, p = 0.513). Reductions in mortality and healthcare utilisation were greater for (very) severe COPD cases. Results are robust to sensitivity analyses.

Table 2 Outcomes for the telemonitoring and control group now reads

This study demonstrates that telemonitoring for COPD reduces mortality, at no increase in healthcare costs and utilisation at 12 months. Since no significant cost savings were achieved, on average, the telemonitoring programme cannot be considered a dominant technology (i.e. ICER: € 146 per avoided year of life lost).

A fully corrected version of the text, all tables and figures can be obtained from the authors upon request or as part of the online supplementary material of this correction.