Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Excerpt

For many countries, cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) has a come a long way. Consideration of cost in medical decision making has long been an anathema to most physicians. Acceptance of CEA as part of the treatment and policy-making decision process has come slowly, but there have been major gains. Over the 3 decades since the seminal article by Weinstein and Stason[1] appeared in 1977, CEA methods have gained respectability in the clinical world. Many medical journals routinely publish these analyses, and the methods have become a standard part of the pharmacy school curriculum. CEAs are required as part of new drug reviews in many countries, and various governmental and quasi-governmental agencies routinely perform these analyses for the purpose of informing policy. The beliefs that healthcare resources are limited and that cost must be part of the policy discussion are now well engrained across the healthcare sector. …