Cost-benefit Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medicine、Western Medicine and Integrated Chinese–Western Medicine on the Treatment of Pediatric Asthma.

[[abstract]]Goal: According to the proclamation of Department of Health in Year 2009, asthma ranking 10th place of children’s leading cause of death in Taiwan, is considered as a terrible threat to the health of children. Consequently, how to improve children's health from asthma become important. Thus, the study aims to perform cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of Western Medicine (WM), traditional Chinese Medicine (CM), and Integrated Chinese -Western Medicine (IM) on the treatment of pediatric asthma.Method: This is a secondary data analysis by using “One million random samples” of 2005~2008 National Health insurance Research Database (NHIRD). Under the criteria of any child patient under age 11, ICD-9 coded 493, and 3 outpatient visits within any 3 months in Year 2005, we screened 6,669 subjects and categorized into CM group (N=22), WM group (N=6420), and IM group (N=227). We defined per capita total medical expenses occurring in CM, WM, and IM group of Year 2005 as their respective costs, while we calculated the difference of CM-WM group and IM-WM group as the benefit in the following Year 2006~2008. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis was carried out.Result: With the cost-benefit ratio of WM group as base line value (which = 0), we found the value on the cost-benefit analysis of CM was -0.52, and that of IM was 0.47. In other words, a child with pediatric asthma spent 1 dollar on CM in Year 2005, the benefit was 0.52 saving in the average of 3 following years. On the contrary, a child with pediatric asthma spent 1 dollar on IM in Year 2005, it will cost his (or her) parents extra 0.47 on the same counterpart