This is a review of the Health Utilities Index (HUI) multi-attribute health-status classification systems, and single- and multi-attribute utility scoring systems. HUI refers to both HUI Mark 2 (HUI2) and HUI Mark 3 (HUI3) instruments. The classification systems provide compact but comprehensive frameworks within which to describe health status. The multi-attribute utility functions provide all...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS To determine if the choice of health utility measure affects the incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR) when assessing the cost-effectiveness of bilateral cochlear implantation (CI). STUDY DESIGN A scenario-based estimate with three scenarios: 1) a patient with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss with no intervention, 2) the same patient with a unilateral CI wit...

BACKGROUND Gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a common disease. It impairs health related quality of life (HRQL). However, the impact on utility scores and work productivity in patients with moderate to severe GERD is not well known. METHODS We analyzed data from 217 patients with moderate to severe GERD (mean age 50, SD 13.7) across 17 Canadian centers. Patients completed three utili...

Resource allocation techniques have recently appeared as a widely recognized feature in LTE networks. Most of existing approaches in resource allocation focus on maximizing network’s utility functions. The great potential of utility function in improving resource allocation and enhancing fairness and mean opinion score (MOS) indexes has attracted large efforts over the last few years. In this p...

Objective: Societal decision-makers increasingly emphasize their need for evidence-based economic analyses to make reimbursement decisions. The goal of this study was to analyse the cost utility of adalimumab, on both incremental cost and incremental health-value bases, vs. traditional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and the other tumour necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists suitable...

PURPOSE We sought to evaluate 3 methods for imputing utility-based outcomes from clinical trial data measured using the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form (SF-36). SUBJECTS Our subjects included 131 male and 505 female adults (mean age, 55.42 +/- 12.59 years) who were participating in a randomized clinical trial evaluating a new treatment of adults with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). MEA...

BACKGROUND Economic evaluations to inform decisions about allocation of health resources are scarce in Low and Middle Income Countries, including in Sri Lanka. This is in part due to a lack of country-specific utility weights, which are necessary to derive appropriate Quality Adjusted Life Years. The EQ-5D-3 L, a generic multi-attribute instrument (MAUI), is most widely used to measure and valu...

BACKGROUND A summary utility index is useful for deriving quality-adjusted life years (QALY) for cost analyses or disability weights for burden of disease studies. However, many quality of life instruments provide descriptive profiles rather than a single utility index. Transforming quality of life instruments to a utility index could extend the use of quality of life instruments to costs analy...