Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) examines whether treatment benefits outweight treatment costs on average for a given patient population. A 2016 paper by Verguet, Kim and Jamison examine the concept of extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA) which applies cost effectiveness methodologies to health care policies. The policies are evaluated over 4 domains: (1) health gains; (2)…
What are the best practices for conducting comparative effectiveness research in the real-world? One proposed best practice guildelines are the Good Research for Comparative Effectiveness (GRACE) guidelines. However, most studies do not follow these guidelines. A paper by Dreyer, Bryant and Velentgas (2016) assembled 28 observational comparative effectiveness articles published from 2001 to 2010 that compared treatment effectiveness and/or…
On it’s website, the Instititute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) claims that it is “…a trusted non-profit organization that evaluates evidence on the value of medical tests, treatments and delivery system innovations and moves that evidence into action to improve the health care system. ” A recent article in Huffington Post however, disagrees. They make two key…
What is cost effectiveness analysis or CEA? One definition is that CEAs–at least in the field of health care–measure the difference or ratio between cost of care and the benefits of care for a given intervention compared to an alternative treatment strategy. The intervention could be a new surgical procedure, a drug, a behavior modification program or any other…
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) claims that although cost-effectiveness is highly valued in its health technology appraisal process, it sates that there are other factors considered relevant. However, no explicit weight is assigned to these other factors. Do they matter? A paper by Dakin et al. (2015) tries to answer this question by looking…
One of my paper (along with co-authors Darius Lakdawalla, Claudio Lucarelli, Sean Nicholson, Zeba M. Khan and Tomas J. Philipson) was published at Health Affairs. The title of the study is: Quality-Adjusted Cost Of Care: A Meaningful Way To Measure Growth In Innovation Cost Versus The Value Of Health Gains. The abstract is below. Technology drives both…
Most people know what cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), but what is extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA)? A paper by Verguet, Laxminarayan,and Jamison (2014) describes the ECEA approach as it relates to the benefits of universal public finance (UPF) of specific medical treatments. CEA measures the effectiveness of a treatment relative to its cost. ECEA does this…
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is largely curable: “In clinical trials, antiviral therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (PEG-IFNR) has resulted in a sustained viral response (SVR) (that is, cure) of HCV infection in 46% of patients infected with genotype 1 (which infects 70% and 90% of chronically infected white and African American persons in…
According to Fuchs and Millstein, here’s why: Insurers hesitation to standardize coverage. Standardization of coverage would force insurance companies to compete primarily on the basis of price, which would put pressure on their profits. Employers bear too much of the marginal cost from employees choosing expensive health plans. Because companies wish to avoid alienating employees,…
Although the H1N1 influenza virus has garnered most of the media attention, protecting children against standard strains of influenza has generally been shown to be cost effective. However, the cost effectiveness depends on the timing. The flu season generally lasts from September to June, but flu generally has the highest incidence in November and December.…