Applied Health Economics and Health Policy最新文献

Background

Clinical healthcare is not the only way to improve an individual’s health. Community-based interventions can have health and wellbeing impacts as well; however, the nature of these interventions, which have public good characteristics, poses challenges for the typical ways in which we value outcomes for use in (health) economic evaluations. The approaches to valuation of these type of interventions should allow for the incorporation of all types of values including option value, externalities and individual use-value.

Objective

This is a feasibility study with the objective to re-consider the importance of health externalities when valuing public health interventions that are treated as public goods from an economic perspective.

Methods

A contingent valuation (CV) survey was designed to elicit individual willingness to pay (WTP) for the public piano programme (PPP). Five different scenarios were designed; three scenarios focussed on individual use–value, while the other two (scenarios 4 and 5) covered option values and externalities. An online survey was conducted with a sample of 105 people.

Results

Preferences differed across the different scenarios. The mean WTP for scenario 1 was £0.81, for scenario 2 £3.65, for scenario 3 £3.07, for scenario 4 £7.26 and for scenario 5 £6.02. The WTP results for each scenario are presented and discussed regarding the nature of the good, user and non-user perspectives, payment vehicles and individual characteristics.

Conclusion

This study provides evidence that all types of use are necessary for inclusion in an economic evaluation, especially when the good in question is a public good where its benefits can be obtained from all community members.

The Health Service Executive, responsible for operating the Irish health service, has introduced health technology management (HTM) initiatives to manage expenditure on medicines. One such approach is managed access protocols (MAPs) to support access to high-cost medicines, while providing oversight, governance and budgetary certainty to the payer. Herein we describe the development and operation of MAPs, using case studies of liraglutide (Saxenda^®), dupilumab (Dupixent^®) and calcitonin gene-related peptide monoclonal antibodies. A MAP imposes the eligibility criteria attached to reimbursement support of a medicine. Criteria applied include controls on prescribing authority, clinical diagnostic and severity criteria, previous lines of treatment, concomitant treatments, outcome data collection, and validations within the reimbursement claims system. The choice of criteria are specific to each medicine, dictated by the areas of uncertainty highlighted in the health technology assessment report, such as the place in treatment, population, duration of treatment, etc., the commercial arrangements reached with the marketing authorisation holder, and specific recommendations made by the decision maker. By December 2023, there were 28 medicines reimbursed subject to a MAP in Ireland. Across the three case studies outlined, over 3000 patients were accessing novel treatments for chronic illnesses in September 2023. Managed access protocols can provide some cost certainty for the payer by aligning utilisation and expenditure with committed funds, while enabling access where unmet need is highest. Managed access protocols are now established in the drug reimbursement process in Ireland, meeting the needs of both payers, patients and industry, and are likely to remain a feature of the reimbursement landscape.

Background

Increasing healthcare costs require evidence-based resource use allocation for which assessing costs rigorously and comparably is crucial. Harmonized cross-country costing methods for evaluating interventions from a societal perspective are lacking. This study presents the development process and content of the service costing templates developed as part of the European project PECUNIA.

Methods

The six developmental steps towards technological readiness of the templates included (1) a common conceptual costing framework and review of methodological costing issues, (2) harmonization strategy formulation, (3) proof-of-concept with expert feedback, (4) piloting, (5) validation, and (6) demonstration in six European countries.

Results

The PECUNIA Reference Unit Cost (RUC) Templates for service costing are three new self-completion tools to be used with secondary or primary data for top-down micro-costing or top-down gross-costing approaches. Complementary data collection and unit cost aggregation/weighting templates are available. The applications leading to the final versions including (4) piloting through calculation of 15-unit costs, (5) validation within a Health Technology Assessment framework, and (6) RUC calculations mostly based on secondary data demonstrated the templates’ general feasibility, with feedback for improved usability incorporated and a supplementary user guide developed.

Conclusion

The validated PECUNIA RUC Templates for multi-sectoral and multi-country service costing allow for harmonized RUC development while incorporating flexibility and transparency in the choice of costing approaches, data sources and magnitude of remaining heterogeneity. The templates are expected to significantly improve the quality, comparability and availability of unit costs for economic evaluations, and promote the transferability of service cost information across Europe.

Background and Objective

While financial literacy is a plausible determinant of mental health, there are relatively few studies exploring the relationship between financial literacy and mental health, and the existing literature focuses on a single construct of financial literacy in high-income settings. Our study addresses this by investigating whether there is an association between financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours and mental health in Chinese adults.

Methods

We use data from the China Family Panel Studies, a nationally representative longitudinal survey. Mental health is measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) and financial literacy is assessed using a unique module on financial literacy covering financial knowledge, financial attitudes and financial behaviours.

Results

We found that overall financial literacy and two of its dimensions (financial attitudes and financial behaviours) are always positively associated with mental health. A positive association between basic financial knowledge and mental health is also apparent but is mediated by households’ finances. Our results are robust to using different outcome variables and estimation methods. Finally, we found that compared with their counterparts without debt, indebted respondents show a stronger sensitivity of mental health to basic financial knowledge, as well as a significant association between advanced financial knowledge and mental health, which persist when we control for households’ finances.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that investments in financial education might significantly benefit mental health in Chinese adults. This is especially the case among indebted adults.

Intensive care unit (ICU) patients receive highly complex care and often require sedation as part of their management. ICU sedation has traditionally been delivered using intravenous (IV) agents due to the impractical use of anaesthetic machines in this setting, which are used to deliver volatile sedation. Sedaconda anaesthetic conserving device (ACD)-S (previously known as AnaConDa-S) is a device which allows for the delivery of volatile sedation via the majority of mechanical ventilators by being inserted in the breathing circuit where the heat and moisture exchanger is normally placed. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), as part of the Medical Technologies Evaluation Programme, considered the potential benefits of using Sedaconda ACD-S compared to standard IV sedation in ICU patients. Here we describe the evidence evaluation undertaken by NICE on this technology, supported by CEDAR. CEDAR considered the evidence present in 21 publications that compared the clinical outcomes of patients receiving Sedaconda ACD-S-delivered sedation and IV sedation, and critiqued the economic model provided by the manufacturer. Clinical expert input during the evaluation process was used extensively to ensure that the relevant clinical evidence was captured and that the economic model was suitable for the UK setting. Due to the uncertainty of the evidence, sensitivity analysis was carried out on the key economic inputs to ensure the reliability of the results. Economic modelling has shown that Sedaconda ACD-S–delivered isoflurane sedation is cost saving on a 30-day horizon compared to IV sedation by £3833.76 per adult patient and by £2837.41 per paediatric patient. Clinical evidence indicated that Sedaconda ACD-S-delivered isoflurane sedation is associated with faster patient wake-up times than standard of care. Consequently, NICE recommended Sedaconda ACD-S as an option for delivering sedation in the ICU setting, but noted that further research should inform whether Sedaconda ACD-S–delivered sedation is of benefit to any particular subgroup of patients.

Background

High healthcare costs could arise from unmet needs. This study used random forest (RF) and regression methods to identify predictors of high costs from a US payer perspective in patients newly diagnosed with generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG).

Methods

Adults with gMG (first diagnosis = index) were selected from the IQVIA PharMetrics^® Plus database (2017–2021). Predictors of high healthcare costs were measured 12 months pre-index (main cohort) and during both the 12 months pre- and post-index (subgroup). Top 50 predictors of high costs [≥ $9404 (main cohort) and ≥ $9159 (subgroup) per-patient-per-month] were identified with RF models; the magnitude and direction of association were estimated with multivariable modified Poisson regression models.

Results

The main cohort and subgroup included 2739 and 1638 patients, respectively. In RF analysis, the most important predictors of high costs before/on the index date were index MG exacerbation, all-cause inpatient admission, and number of days with corticosteroids. After the index date, these were immunoglobulin and monoclonal antibody use and number of all-cause outpatient visits and MG-related encounters. Adjusting for the top 50 predictors, post-index immunoglobulin use increased the risk of high costs by 261%, monoclonal antibody use by 135%, index MG exacerbation by 78%, and pre-index all-cause inpatient admission by 27% (all p < 0.05).

Conclusions

This analysis links patient characteristics both before the formal MG diagnosis and in the first year to high future healthcare costs. Findings may help inform payers on cost-saving strategies, and providers can potentially shift to targeted treatment approaches to reduce the clinical and economic burden of gMG.

The article offers a comparative analysis of the influence of cost-effectiveness thresholds in the decision-making processes in financing policies, coverage, and price regulation of health technologies in nine countries. We investigated whether countries used cost-effectiveness thresholds for public health policy decision making and found that few countries have adopted the cost-effectiveness threshold as an official criterion for financing, reimbursement, or pricing. However, in countries where it is applied, such as Thailand, the results have been very favorable in terms of minimizing health technology prices and ensuring the financial sustainability of the health system. Although the cost-effectiveness threshold has opportunities for improvement, particularly in certain institutional contexts and with adequate participation of the different strategic actors in the formulation of public policy, its potential use and added value are significant in various aspects.