The primary process and key concepts of economic evaluation in healthcare
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Economic evaluations in the healthcare are used to assess economic efficiency of pharmaceuticals and medical interventions such as diagnoses and medical procedures. This study introduces the main concepts of economic evaluation across its key steps: planning, outcome and cost calculation, modeling, cost-effectiveness results, uncertainty analysis, and decision-making. When planning an economic evaluation, we determine the study population, intervention, comparators, perspectives, time horizon, discount rates, and type of economic evaluation. In healthcare economic evaluations, outcomes include changes in mortality, the survival rate, life years, and quality-adjusted life years, while costs include medical, non-medical, and productivity costs. Model-based economic evaluations, including decision tree and Markov models, are mainly used to calculate the total costs and total effects. In cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analyses, cost-effectiveness is evaluated using the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, which is the additional cost per one additional unit of effectiveness gained by an intervention compared with a comparator. All outcomes have uncertainties owing to limited evidence, diverse methodologies, and unexplained variation. Thus, researchers should review these uncertainties and confirm their robustness. We hope to contribute to the establishment and dissemination of economic evaluation methodologies that reflect Korean clinical and research environment and ultimately improve the rationality of healthcare policies.
Date Issued
2022-09-01
Date Acceptance
2022-07-20
Citation
Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, 2022, 55 (5), pp.415-423
ISSN
1975-8375
Publisher
Korean Society for Preventive Medicine
Start Page
415
End Page
423
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
Volume
55
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and repro duction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-08-24