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 costutility 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.
Summary
Korean summary
보건의료분야에서 경제성 평가는 의약품과 진단검사 및 치료법 등 의료기술에 대한 평가에서 널리 활용되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 경제성 평가절차를 경제성 평가 설계, 결과 산출, 비용산출, 모형 구축 및 분석, 비용-효과성 결과 제시 및 불확실성 평가와 의사 결정 단계로 나누어 주요 개념과 쟁점들을 소개하였다.
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