Attendance-related Healthcare Resource Utilisation and Costs in Patients With Brugada Syndrome in Hong Kong: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Understanding health care resource utilisa-tion and its associated costs are important for identify-ing areas of improvement regarding resource allocations. However, there is limited research explor-ing this issue in the setting of Brugada syndrome (BrS).This was a retrospective territory-wide study of BrS patients from Hong Kong. Healthcare resource utilisation for accident and emergency (A&E), inpa-tient and specialist outpatient attendances were analyzed over a 19-year period, with their associated costs presented in US dollars. A total of 507 BrS patients with a mean presentation age of 49.9 +/- 16.3 years old were included. Of these, 384 patients displayed spontaneous type 1 electrocardiographic (ECG) Brugada pattern and 77 patients had presented with ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation (VT/VF). At the individual patient level, the median annualized costs were $110 (52-224) at the (A & E) set-ting, $6812 (1982-32414) at the inpatient setting and $557 (326-1001) for specialist outpatient attendances. Patients with initial VT/VF presentation had overall greater costs in inpatient ($20161 [9147-189215] vs $5290 [1613-24937],P < 0.0001) and specialist outpa-tient setting ($776 [438-1076] vs $542 [293-972], P = 0.015) compared to those who did not present VT. In addition, patients without Type 1 ECG pattern had greater median costs in the specialist outpatient setting ($7036 [3136-14378] vs $4895 [2409-10554],p=0.019). There is a greater health care demand in the inpatient and specialist outpatient settings for BrS patients. The most expensive attendance type was inpatient setting stay at $6812 per year. The total median annualized cost of BrS patients without VT/VF presentation was 78% lower compared to patients with VT/VF presen-tation. (Curr Probl Cardiol 2023;48:101513.)

Automated summary

Understanding the utilization of healthcare resources and its associated costs is crucial for improving resource allocation, but little research has been conducted on this issue in the setting of Brugada syndrome (BrS). In this retrospective study of BrS patients in Hong Kong, the healthcare resource utilization for accident and emergency, inpatient, and specialist outpatient visits was analyzed over 19 years. The median annual costs were $110 for accident and emergency visits, $6812 for inpatient stays, and $557 for specialist outpatient visits.