According to a new report substituting pharmaceutical antidepressants with St John’s Wort could save the health system $50 million a year. This research was conducted by Access Economics for the National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM) at the University of Western Sydney. It showed that cost effectiveness of complementary and alternative therapies have the potential to cut costs without compromising patient outcomes.
Director of Access Economics Lynne Pezzullo said increasing the use of complementary medicines would have a bigger impact than the report suggests. He said, “Cost effectiveness of complementary medicines’ report identified substantial dollar savings even though only the direct health care costs were examined and indirect costs, such as productivity losses were excluded….he economic benefits of complementary medicine would be much larger than we report if the significant flow-on benefits of keeping people healthy, able to work and out of an already stretched hospital system were included.”
According to Executive Director of NICM Professor Alan Bensoussan this report is supported by the growing scientific evidence which shows the efficacy of complementary medicine. He said, “The clinical evidence showing some complementary medicine can play a vital role in improving an individual’s health has been clear for some time…Now this report shows complementary medicine could also improve the health of the system.”
The report also said that the health system could save $178 million each year by using herbal preparation, Phytodolor instead of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for the treatment of osteoarthritis. Use of Omega 3 fish oil supplements was also a “highly cost effective” intervention to prevent heart disease for people who have previously had a heart attack.
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