LAUSR

We also agree with Dr Taylor et al that cost-effectiveness studies, like those reported to date, are important and standard state of the art methods for judging whether the costs of an intervention are justifiable based on their health benefits. The ICU Telemedicine Financial Outcomes study and an externally conducted, reported, and audited study of an ICU telemedicine Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services demonstration project conducted at Emory, have indicated that comprehensive ICU telemedicine programs can have financially significant favorable effects on case volume and on the costs of posthospital care that may not be visible using conventional cost-effectiveness methods. In addition to effects on the cost-quality axis, ICU telemedicine programs can affect the costs of providing access to high-quality critical care depicted on the quality-access and cost-access axes of Figure 1.