ArticleTelemedicine reports2025
Telemedicine Gatekeeping Over 15,000 Patients from Specialist Consultation Waiting Lists: A Cost-Minimization Study.
Article in Telemedicine reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: This study assesses the cost-minimization of the RegulaSUS telemedicine program, reducing the necessity for face-to-face specialist consultations. Methods: A cost analysis study, utilizing a retrospective cohort design, was conducted from January 2017 to December 2019. The gatekeeping process for waiting lists for specialized consultations was performed by two groups: the RegulaSUS program through telemedicine intervention and those regulated by the usual procedures of the Ambulatory Regulation Center of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (the contemporaneous controls group). The primary outcome was to evaluate the financial impact of the RegulaSUS program on the health system costs using the Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) method. Results: The RegulaSUS program substantially reduced health care and societal expenditures, with gatekeeping by telemedicine costing $85.02 versus $214.45 for usual procedures-a 60% reduction. This intervention resulted in societal savings of R$7,833,882.56 over 36 months by successfully managing 15,064 patients within primary care settings, rather than referring them to specialists. Conclusions: The RegulaSUS program demonstrates a remarkable economic impact by integrating evidence-based gatekeeping protocols with telemedicine infrastructure, effectively decreasing specialist demand. This intervention provides compelling evidence for the potential of telemedicine to optimize health care resource allocation, enhance care coordination, and improve system efficiency. The outcomes present a scalable, financially sustainable model for health system strengthening that merits consideration for broader implementation across Brazil's public health network and adaptation to comparable global health care contexts facing similar resource constraints.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.