Economics Department, National Cheng Kung University , Tainan, Taiwan.
Telemed J E Health. 2009 Dec;15(10):949-53; discussion 954-5. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2009.0077.
This study examined how health service provision via telemedicine and conventional medical systems affected a population's health status and whether the costs of health services play a deterministic role in allocating medical resources. Using the health indicator of the life expectancy at birth and applying the generalized methods of moments estimators in version 10.0 of the statistical software STATA by blending statistics and data with the survey data, the panel datasets of observations were covered over the period 1995-2004 for the Taiwan experience. Empirical evidence indicated that a 10% increase in the cost of each conventional health service increased the population life expectancy at birth by 0.12%. A 10% increase in gross domestic product per capita or the income level of the country increased the population's life expectancy at birth by 0.0023%. A 10% increase in population increased the population's life expectancy at birth by 0.0004%. A 10% increase in the ratio of telehealth services relative to conventional medical services increased the population's life expectancy at birth by 0.00019%. Interestingly, the cost of each telehealth service does not influence the population's health status. Furthermore, to reach the longevity at 76.25 years that is the current population's life expectancy at birth, an increase in health services via the telecommunications system of 243 times is able to reduce the cost of conventional health services by 69.5%. Accordingly, the cost of telehealth services does not play a deterministic role for guiding medical resource allocation and the provision of telemedicine is able to effectively save medical resources.
本研究考察了远程医疗和传统医疗系统提供的医疗服务如何影响人口的健康状况，以及医疗服务成本在分配医疗资源方面是否起决定性作用。本研究使用出生时预期寿命这一健康指标，通过将统计学和数据与调查数据相融合，运用统计软件 STATA 版本 10.0 中的广义矩估计方法，对 1995-2004 年台湾地区的面板数据集进行了观测。实证结果表明，传统医疗服务成本每增加 10%，人口出生时预期寿命将增加 0.12%。人均国内生产总值（GDP）或国家收入水平每增加 10%，人口出生时预期寿命将增加 0.0023%。人口每增加 10%，人口出生时预期寿命将增加 0.0004%。远程医疗服务相对于传统医疗服务的比例每增加 10%，人口出生时预期寿命将增加 0.00019%。有趣的是，每一项远程医疗服务的成本并不影响人口的健康状况。此外，为了达到当前人口出生时预期寿命 76.25 岁的目标，通过电信系统增加 243 倍的医疗服务可以使传统医疗服务的成本降低 69.5%。因此，远程医疗服务的成本在指导医疗资源配置方面不起决定性作用，远程医疗的提供能够有效地节约医疗资源。
