Determining value in health technology assessment: stay the course or tack away?

PharmacoEconomics

15 February 2019 - The economic evaluation of new health technologies to assess whether the value of the expected health benefits warrants the proposed additional costs has become an essential step in making novel interventions available to patients. 

This assessment of value is problematic because there exists no natural means to measure it. One approach is to assume that society wishes to maximize aggregate health, measured in terms of quality-adjusted life-years. Commonly, a single ‘cost-effectiveness’ threshold is used to gauge whether the intervention is sufficiently efficient in doing so. 

This approach has come under fire for failing to account for societal values that favour treating more severe illness and ensuring equal access to resources, regardless of pre-existing conditions or capacity to benefit.

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Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder