COPD Uncovered Latest Data: Study Demonstrates Economic Impact of COPD on Healthcare Systems

16 June 2010

The latest phase of the COPD Uncovered Initiative was revealed at the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG) Conference on Thursday 3rd June.

These were the results to an international survey questioning 2426 COPD patients of working age (45 to 68 years) on their use of healthcare services. The results of this survey, combined with available standard UK healthcare provider costs, show that the impact to healthcare governments on a monthly basis is over £875,000 for these patients alone. This breaks down as an average cost of £362 per patient per month.

Although there were variations between countries, on average over half the patients had visited their general practitioner at least once in the previous four weeks. Primary care-based treatment of COPD was shown to be the most economic option (£52* per patient per month; total per month = £63,128*), while the greatest cost to healthcare systems came from hospital in-patients (£2,304* per patient per month; total per month = £665,856*).

The data presented on the 3rd June represents a sub-analysis of the survey presented at the American Thoracic Society congress last month, which demonstrated the economic and social burden of COPD in terms of reducing patients’ ability to continue in fulltime employment and carry on with their normal lifestyle.

Read the full COPD Uncovered Press Release and download the Report here

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