Citation

Wu S, Keeler EB, Rubenstein LZ, Maglione MA, Shekelle PG. Clin. Geriatr. Med. 2010; 26(4): 751-766.

Affiliation

Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California, 3715 McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA; Southern California Evidence-Based Practice Center, RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cger.2010.07.005

PMID

20934620

Abstract

Falls are a major health concern for elderly people and cause substantial health care costs. The authors used meta-analytic findings on the effectiveness of fall prevention interventions to determine cost-effectiveness of a proposed Medicare fall prevention program for people who experience a recent fall. Using published clinical trial data, the authors constructed a population-based economic model and estimated that, in the base case, the program could prevent a half million people from falling again within a year. From the model, under most circumstances the cost-effectiveness ratio is less than $1500 per person prevented from experiencing a recurrent fall. Paying for a fall prevention program to increase the use of evidence-based interventions would be a cost-effective use of Medicare dollars.

Language: en