Effect evaluation of telemedicine pilot policy in China based on synthetic control method
Objective To inspect the effect of telemedicine in promoting patients to visit primary medi-cal facilities,thus evaluating the effect of the telemedicine pilot policy and proposing suggestions.Methods The numbers of visits and admissions to county hospitals were selected as indicators to evaluate the effect of the tele-medicine pilot policy.The effect was evaluated using a synthetic control method based on data from 28 provinces and regions from 2003 to 2019.And the robustness of the results was examined by a placebo test.Results After the implementation of the telemedicine pilot policy in 2015,the increase in the numbers of visits/admissions to county hospitals accelerated in four pilot provinces and regions,Guizhou,Inner Mongolia,Yunnan,and Ningxia.The pilot policy significantly contributed to these increases.As for Tibet,the impact of the telemedicine pilot poli-cy could not be assessed because of poor fit of visits/admissions prior to 2015.Conclusions The telemedicine pi-lot policy promotes patients visiting primary medical facilities in the four pilot provinces and regions,Guizhou,In-ner Mongolia,Yunnan and Ningxia.The pilot policy can effectively promote telemedicine services,playing the role of deploying high-quality healthcare resources to primary medical facilities and increasing primary medical vis-its.For the future,the experience of telemedicine construction should be summarized.And the telemedicine serv-ices should be promoted and evaluated according to the local conditions.
TelemedicineSynthetic control methodPolicy effect evaluation
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
