Background The inclusion of cost-effectiveness data, as a basis for priority setting rankings, is a distinguishing feature in the formulation of the Swedish national guidelines. Guidelines are generated with the direct intent to influence health policy and support decisions about the efficient allocation of scarce healthcare resources. Certain medical conditions may be given higher priority ran...

A natural response to difficult questions is to increase the number of objectives one pursues in the hope that each of them separately will be easy to satisfy. This note critically evaluates this strategy as employed in a recent paper in this journal [Musgrove, Health Policy 1999;47:207-223], especially its evaluation of the role of cost-effectiveness in priority setting in the health sector. I...

OBJECTIVE Newer medications offer more options for glycemic control in type 2 diabetes. However, they come at considerable costs. We undertook a health economic analysis to better understand the value of adding two newer medications (exenatide and sitagliptin) as second-line therapy to glycemic control strategies for patients with new-onset diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed a...

OBJECTIVE To review the international body of literature from 2010 to 2015 concerning methods of economic evaluations used in hospital- and community-based studies of pharmacy services in publicly funded health systems worldwide, their clinical outcomes, and economic effectiveness. DATA SOURCES The literature search was undertaken between May 2, 2015, and September 4, 2015. Keywords included ...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether brief interventions promoting physical activity are cost-effective in primary care or community settings. DESIGN Systematic review of economic evaluations. METHODS AND DATA SOURCES We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EconLit, SPORTDiscus, PEDro, the Cochrane library, National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database and the Cost-Effectiveness Ana...

OBJECTIVES A growing number of prospective clinical trials include economic end points. Recognizing the variation in methodology and reporting of these studies, the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) chartered the Task Force on Good Research Practices: Randomized Clinical Trials-Cost-Effectiveness Analysis. Its goal was to develop a guidance document for d...

Alan Williams’s web site describes him as a ‘‘pseudoretired professor of economics still active in promoting more explicit priority-setting based on cost-effectiveness approaches to both health maximisation and the reduction of health inequalities’’. He is widely acknowledged as the most influential of British health economists and indeed the father of the sub-discipline in the United Kingdom, ...

AIMS While strong correlations exist between medication adherence and health economic outcomes in type 2 diabetes, current economic analyses do not adequately consider them. We propose a new approach to incorporate adherence in cost-effectiveness analysis. METHODS We describe a theoretical approach to incorporating the effect of adherence when estimating the long-term costs and effectiveness ...

Editorial In an ideal situation, every person should 'receive his or her share of health care'. However, reality does not often match the ideal. Resources are finite while human beings have infinite wants and needs. Although it has been said that 'health is priceless', it certainly has its costs. The discussion regarding the inequity between how much needs to be invested in health care and the ...

New medical technology is often cited as a contributing factor to increasing health care costs. In a 1990 report to the National Committee for Quality Health Care, 2 the forces driving health care spending were examined in detail. In a section reviewing the impact of new medical technology, the report cited an analysis of American Hospital Association data that concluded half the increase in re...