The changing role of economic evaluation in valuing medical technologies

Abstract

Economic evaluation is established within health-technology assessment but is challenged by those wanting to use economic evaluation to inform pricing and/or incorporate nontraditional sources of value and the views of diverse stakeholders. The changing role of economic evaluation in (formally or informally) assessing prices/values in four jurisdictions (UK, Australia, Germany and USA) is detailed and the authors propose a taxonomy of factors impacting the value of medical technology spanning clinical utility (effectiveness, safety/tolerability and quality of evidence), consumer demand (consumer preferences, process utility and unmet need), economic incentives (innovation, option value and market competition) and the societal perspective (social justice, social values and national interest). The authors suggest that multicriteria decision analysis methods grounded in hedonic-pricing theory can facilitate the valuing/pricing of medical technologies. The use of such an approach is hindered by a paucity of relevant educational opportunities, vested interests and aversion to placing prices/values on health.

Keywords::

• economic evaluation
• health-technology assessment
• medical technologies
• pricing
• value

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to three reviewers who all gave very detailed and very productive comments on the original draft of this manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The research described in this article, the drafting of this manuscript and its publication were funded by Abbott Products Operations A.G., Switzerland. D Foerster is an employee of Abbott. All authors have participated in the design, data analysis and drafting of this article. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.