Users of Babylon’s digital GP app incurred acute hospital costs between 15 and 35 per cent lower than the general population, with A&E attendance rates down 28 per cent, according to peer-reviewed research from JMIR.
The research compared the spend per patient of users of the Babylon GP at Hand app with that on users of all other GP practices in the North West London region.
The researchers took into account the lower use of certain hospital services by people embracing digital health, identified by comparing the pre-app hospitalisation of the Babylon app population.
Lower costs amongst the app’s users were seen over two consecutive years, during which time the registered population of Babylon GP at Hand doubled in size. The work builds on findings from an independent NHS evaluation of Babylon GP at Hand, which reported that members were significantly less likely to use certain emergency services after registering with Babylon GP at Hand.
Babylon says the research shows digital-first primary care is associated with significantly lower downstream care costs.
Babylon CEO Ali Parsa says: “The triple-aim of healthcare has long been clear – to improve the patient experience of care; to improve the health of populations; and to reduce the per capita cost of healthcare. Preventative healthcare is now understood to be the key to unlocking these benefits, but all too often general practices are not resourced or able to provide the accessibility of high quality care required. As a result, primary care clinicians burn out, costs bankrupt people and patient populations are not well served. Babylon has invested in accessibility, in technology and in supporting staff, with the deliberate aim of solving more of our members’ problems in primary care. It’s great to see further evidence that our end-to-end digital-first services are benefiting patients and doctors by solving patient health problems and reducing expensive downstream care, through accessible and clinically effective primary care.”.
Babylon CMO Darshak Sanghavi, former group director of CMS during the Obama administration, says: “This is powerful evidence that by improving access through digital-first healthcare can lead to meaningful reduction on downstream care costs. This is a lesson that can apply outside the UK into markets like the US, Canada, and beyond.”
