Economic evaluation is a comparative analysis of alternative courses of action in terms of both their costs and consequences. Such analyses can be set within the context of a randomized control trial or other health research study designs. Alternatively, they can also be undertaken through decision analytical modeling approaches.

Why HEE is important?

Due to resource scarcity, health care funders and providers are no longer assessing health care interventions only in terms of their clinical safety and effectiveness. Increasingly, they wish to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these interventions. Health economic evaluation offers a systematic decision-making framework that ensures resources are expended prudently and critical needs are met.

 Key HEE Methodology

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is the primary tool used in health economic evaluation to identify health care interventions that represent efficient use of health care resources. Such analysis typically entails formulation of constrained maximization problem where the objective function is to maximize health-related outcomes subject to a budget constraint. Such a problem is subsequently solved using either advanced mathematical programming techniques or standard cost-effectiveness decision rules. Essentially, these rules compare the cost per additional unit of health effect (i.e.  incremental cost effectiveness ratio) of an intervention  with a predefined threshold value to assess the economic feasibility of implementing the intervention.

Example HEE Projects of CHSR

1.       Economic Analysis of Endobronchial Ultrasound as a Tool in the Diagnosis and Staging of Lung Cancer in Singapore (Link to publication, if published)

2.       Economic Evaluation of the Singapore Integrated Diabetic Retinopathy Programme (SiDRP): Centralized Tele-ophthalmic Service for Diabetic Retinopathy Screening

3.       Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination in Singapore
4.     Economic Evaluation of Cardiac Rehabilitation for Patients with Chronic Heart Failure
5.     Is simultaneous pancreas kidney transplant the most cost-effective treatment for Type 1 diabetes patients with renal failure? A cost-utility analysis

Useful links:

A Self-Study Introductory Course on Health Economics: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/edu/healthecon/01_he_intro.html

General guidelines for Health Economic Evaluation:
http://www.ispor.org/peguidelines/source/Guidelines_Austria.pdf