The Societal Impact of a Virtual Companionship Programme for People with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

Introduction: The Social Return on Investment, or SROI methodology, is an alternative to traditional economic evaluation methodologies and is suitable to assess the societal impact of Digital Health Technologies, even in an early stage of development. Our aim is to present the SROI methodology and to assess the societal impact (forecast) of a Virtual Companionship Programme developed in the European RE-SAMPLE project for people suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.Material and methods: To assess the societal impact of the RE-SAMPLE Virtual Companionship Programme, the principles and phases of the SROI methodology are followed. The SROI process leads to two clear products: an impact map and an SROI ratio (benchmark).Results: Based on the final impact map, established together with consortium partners and a group from the Dutch pilot site, we were able to calculate the forecast SROI of the RE-SAMPLE Virtual Companionship Programme. The total input of this SROI is € 622k and the total outcome is € 746k, resulting in an SROI ratio of 1.20.Discussion: The RE-SAMPLE Virtual Companionship Programme forecast SROI demonstrates what alternations are necessary to increase the societal impact to a more acceptable level, such as including more participants or lowering the costs for the hospital. Given our experience, we are enthusiastic about this pragmatic methodology and its potential to assess the social impact of Digital Health Technologies, due toits multi stakeholder perspective and practicality. It is hoped this paper will encourage other academics to use this methodology to assess the societal impact of Digital Health Technologies and to publish their work.

Keywords: Societal impact, SROI, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, virtual companionship programme, digital health technology