title: The effect of telehealth systems and satisfaction with health expenditure among patients with metabolic syndrome.
abstract: Telehealth cost analysis has become a crucial issue for governments in recent years. In this study, we examined cases of metabolic syndrome in Hualien County, Taiwan. This research adopted the framework proposed by Marchand to establish a study process. In addition, descriptive statistics, a t test, analysis of variance, and regression analysis were employed to analyze 100 questionnaires. The results of the t$ test revealed significant differences in medical health expenditure, number of clinical visits for medical treatment, average amount of time spent commuting to clinics, amount of time spent undergoing medical treatment, and average number of people accompanying patients to medical care facilities or assisting with other tasks in the past one month, indicating that offering telehealth care services can reduce health expenditure. The statistical analysis results revealed that customer satisfaction has a positive effect on reducing health expenditure. Therefore, this study proves that telehealth care systems can effectively reduce health expenditure and directly improve customer satisfaction with medical treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Telecare, Mennonite Christian Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shu-Lin
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Uei
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Administration, Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology, Hualien, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chung-Hung
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.affiliation: Department of Marketing and Distribution, Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology, Hualien, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yu-Ming
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Kuo
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics
keywords: Telehealth system; customer satisfaction; metabolic syndrome; telehealth expenditure