Valuing Health Care

This book is about the cost effectiveness of present and future medical technologies. Methods of analysing cost effectiveness are described in terms of considering dollar value of treatment, quality of life and the rationale for deciding who should receive treatment in situations of rationed care. Essays in the book range from lay level to highly technical.

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As expenditure on health care has increasingly become an area of public debate and concern, public and private health care decision-makers have called for more rigorous use of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis to guide spending. Concerns have arisen, however, about the overall quality of such analyses. This book discusses and evaluates best-practice methods of conducting cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness studies of pharmaceuticals and other medical technologies. It encompasses a wide variety of topics, ranging from measuring cost and effectiveness to discounting to the use of dynamic modelling of cost-effectiveness. The book also includes conceptual and practical aspects of cost-effectiveness analysis by researchers who have conducted applied research in these areas. Rarely does the book provide a singular solution to a measurement problem; rather, the reader is directed to choices among alternative approaches and an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each.