Affordability and cost-effectiveness: decision-making on the cost-effectiveness plane

Sendi, P.P. and Briggs, A.H. (2001) Affordability and cost-effectiveness: decision-making on the cost-effectiveness plane. Health Economics, 10(7), pp. 675-680. (doi: 10.1002/hec.639)

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Publisher's URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.639

Abstract

Much recent research interest has focused on handling uncertainty in cost-effectiveness analysis and in particular the calculation of confidence intervals for incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Problems of interpretation when ICERs are negative have led to two important and related developments: the use of the net-benefit statistic and the presentation of uncertainty in cost-effectiveness analysis using acceptability curves. However, neither of these developments directly addresses the problem that decision-makers are constrained by a fixed-budget and may not be able to fund new, more expensive interventions, even if they have been shown to represent good value for money. In response to this limitation, the authors introduce the affordability curve which reflects the probability that a programme is affordable for a wide range of threshold budgets. The authors argue that the joint probability an intervention is affordable and cost-effective is more useful for decision-making since it captures both dimensions of the decision problem faced by those responsible for health service budgets.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:affordability; cost-effectiveness; decision-making analysis
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Briggs, Professor Andrew
Authors: Sendi, P.P., and Briggs, A.H.
Subjects:R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment
College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences
Journal Name:Health Economics
Publisher:John Wiley and Sons
ISSN:1057-9230

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