Multi-criteria decision making for evaluating healthcare policies: the benefit/cost analysis by the analytic hierarchy process

Abstract

This paper analyses the policies evaluation process in healthcare context. The rationalisation of available resources for health expenses requires that the health policies are, at all levels, aware of the clinical, economic and organisational implications concerning the adoption of healthcare programs (i.e., medical devices, drug therapies, procedures and services within the health facilities). This kind of evaluation implies an interdisciplinary approach because it involves many fields and includes critical assessment and measurement of the actual improvement of the quality of life of patients. The analytic hierarchy process, one of the most useful multi-criteria decision method, may allow the clinical and hospital management to facilitate decisions by structuring a hierarchy of decision elements and weighting criteria involved in the decision problem. In order to select the best preventive policy to reduce the incidence of a given disease, this paper proposes the use of the analytic hierarchy process which considers two hierarchies allowing to analyse both the effectiveness and efficiency of some policies and their costs. The whole works by the point of view of the hospital management.