Cherokee Nation Health Services, the largest tribally operated health system in the United States, modelled the cost of hepatitis C treatment delivered by primary care providers supported through ECHO telehealth consultation against conventional specialist-based care, using internal financial records and deidentified electronic records for 2016 to 2020. Cost was estimated at $1412 per patient against $4534, with projected cumulative savings of $6.3 million over ten years and close to $10 million over twenty. The figures are modelled from one system's accounts, and no clinical outcome is compared.
Why it is interesting: A costed account of decentralised specialist care in the population with the highest hepatitis C mortality in the United States.