OBJECTIVES Investments in health research should lead to improvements in health and health care. This is also the remit of the main HTA program in the Netherlands. The aims of this study were to assess whether the results of this program have led to such improvements and to analyze how best to assess the impact from health research. METHODS We assessed the impact of individual HTA projects by...

There is increasing pressure on researchers and research funding bodies to demonstrate the value of research. Simple approaches, consistent with the biomedical paradigm, based on relating the cost of research to its supposed impact are being investigated and adopted in laboratory and clinical research. While this may be appropriate in such research areas, it should not be applied to health serv...

BACKGROUND In recent years, Iran has made significant developments in the field of health sciences. However, the question is whether this considerable increase has affected public health. The research budget has always been negligible and unsustainable in developing countries. Hence, using the Payback Framework, we conducted this study to evaluate the impact of health research in Iran. METHOD...

OBJECTIVES To develop a methodology for evaluating the impact of research on health care, and to characterise the papers cited on clinical guidelines. DESIGN The bibliographic details of the papers cited in 15 clinical guidelines, developed in and for the United Kingdom, were collated and analysed with applied bibliometric techniques. RESULTS The median age of papers cited in clinical guide...

OBJECTIVES Ongoing developments in design have improved the outlook for left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation as a therapy in end-stage heart failure. Nevertheless, early cost-effectiveness assessments, based on first-generation devices, have not been encouraging. Against this background, we set out (i) to examine the survival benefit that LVADs would need to generate before they c...

The aim of the paper is to evaluate return of investment (ROI) and cost savings from proposed use of solar systems for residents funded by government grants. The paper deals with proposals for solar energy systems for various use, simple calculations of payback periods of solar systems fi nanced with subsidy and without subsidy. Apart from climatic conditions, chemical composition the of the ab...

This paper describes classroom practices based on interacting with students through their mobile phones, using a minimum of dedicated technology. Students’ sense of proprietorship over such devices has led to results that continue to stimulate our current research efforts. The technologically impoverished teaching tactics first devised to fit technology available in the late nineties are still ...