8 August 2019 - Health care is vital in improving quality and length of life.
However, because resources are scarce, there is considerable interest in costing of health care services, including studies of specific illnesses.
These studies can be used for different purposes, including prioritisation of health expenditures, deciding between different therapies for the same condition, or advocating for additional resources for conditions where the benefits of treatment (ie, reduction in future treatment costs, productivity benefits gained by prolonging survival of young people, or simply additional years of healthy life) outweigh the costs.