Comparative effectiveness research incorporates study designs extending beyond the randomized controlled trial (RCT) [1], which is the touchstone for demonstrating therapeutic efficacy. The litany of RCT flaws is often recited: not real world, not real patients, not real settings, not available, not timely, and not affordable. Although not every RCT is well designed, there are established narra...

BACKGROUND Results of cost-of-illness studies in dementia have shown a considerable divergence in costs of medication for persons with dementia. However, detailed economic analyses of medication costs for community-dwelling persons with dementia are currently still missing, especially on the basis of primary data. OBJECTIVE To determine medication cost, cost per drug, and number of drugs take...

BACKGROUND: In 1990, annual costs of the diagnosis and treatment of cancer reached nearly $100 billion and currently constitutes approximately 10% of health care expenditures in the United States. As new and often more expensive therapies for cancer treatment become available, the health care decision-maker must consider the cost effectiveness of the therapy. METHODS: Key principles of economic...

Across the world there is tremendous variation in the way health care is provided and funded and most importantly in healthcare outcomes. Yet concern about the financing of health care has become a matter of great concern in every economy. In developed countries, rapid growth in medical innovations and technology and the cost of caring for an aging population have combined to make soaring healt...

Turn on the television, radio, or open your favorite newspaper or online newsfeed and you will undoubtedly come across stories on health care economics and policy. Similarly, pick up a medical journal and there is a good chance that youwill come across studies on some aspect of health care economics. The recent change in the White House administration has only kept the topic of health care deli...

This review article aims to provide an introduction to the methodology of health economic assessment of a health technology. Attention is paid to defining the fundamental concepts and terms that are relevant to health economic assessments. The article describes the methodology underlying a cost study (identification, measurement and valuation of resource use, calculation of costs), an economic ...

The appropriate development of a model begins with understanding the problem that is being represented. The aim of this article was to provide a series of consensus-based best practices regarding the process of model conceptualization. For the purpose of this series of articles, we consider the development of models whose purpose is to inform medical decisions and health-related resource alloca...

The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 52, No 12, December 2007 803 Objective: Despite scientific evidence of effectiveness, psychotherapy for personality disorders is not yet fully deployed, nor is its reimbursement self-evident. Both clinicians and health care policy-makers increasingly rely on evidence-based medicine and health economics when determining a treatment of choice and reimbursem...