IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v37y2017i2p139-147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Do Health Economists Promote Technology Adoption Rather Than the Search for Efficiency? A Proposal for a Change in Our Approach to Economic Evaluation in Health Care

Author

Listed:
  • Graham Scotland
  • Stirling Bryan

Abstract

At a time of intense pressure on health care budgets, the technology management challenge is for disinvestment in low-value technologies and reinvestment in higher value alternatives. The aim of this article is to explore ways in which health economists might begin to redress the observed imbalance between the evaluation of new and existing in-use technologies. The argument is not against evaluating new technologies but in favor of the “search for efficiency,†where the ultimate objective is to identify reallocations that improve population health in the face of resource scarcity. We explore why in-use technologies may be of low value and consider how economic evaluation analysts might embrace a broader efficiency lens, first through “technology management†(a process of analysis and evidence-informed decision making throughout a technology’s life cycle) and progressing through “pathway management†(the search for efficiency gains across entire clinical care pathways). A number of model-based examples are used to illustrate the approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Graham Scotland & Stirling Bryan, 2017. "Why Do Health Economists Promote Technology Adoption Rather Than the Search for Efficiency? A Proposal for a Change in Our Approach to Economic Evaluation in Health Care," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 37(2), pages 139-147, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:37:y:2017:i:2:p:139-147
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X16653397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X16653397
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X16653397?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher J.L. Murray & David B. Evans & Arnab Acharya & Rob M.P.M. Baltussen, 2000. "Development of WHO guidelines on generalized cost‐effectiveness analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(3), pages 235-251, April.
    2. Sander Greenland, 2005. "Multiple‐bias modelling for analysis of observational data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(2), pages 267-306, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hofmann, Bjørn, 2020. "Biases distorting priority setting," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 52-60.
    2. MacNeil, Maggie & Koch, Melissa & Kuspinar, Ayse & Juzwishin, Don & Lehoux, Pascale & Stolee, Paul, 2019. "Enabling health technology innovation in Canada: Barriers and facilitators in policy and regulatory processes," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 203-214.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawrence C. McCandless & Sylvia Richardson & Nicky Best, 2012. "Adjustment for Missing Confounders Using External Validation Data and Propensity Scores," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(497), pages 40-51, March.
    2. Michaël Schwarzinger & Jean‐Louis Lanoë & Erik Nord & Isabelle Durand‐Zaleski, 2004. "Lack of multiplicative transitivity in person trade‐off responses," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 171-181, February.
    3. Douglas E. Schaubel & Guanghui Wei, 2011. "Double Inverse-Weighted Estimation of Cumulative Treatment Effects Under Nonproportional Hazards and Dependent Censoring," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 29-38, March.
    4. McCandless Lawrence C., 2012. "Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies with Unmeasured Confounders," The International Journal of Biostatistics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-31, January.
    5. Maria Gheorghe & Susan Picavet & Monique Verschuren & Werner B. F. Brouwer & Pieter H. M. Baal, 2017. "Health losses at the end of life: a Bayesian mixed beta regression approach," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 180(3), pages 723-749, June.
    6. Rebecca M. Turner & David J. Spiegelhalter & Gordon C. S. Smith & Simon G. Thompson, 2009. "Bias modelling in evidence synthesis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(1), pages 21-47, January.
    7. Quartey, Jonathan D. & Nyarko, Lydia Gyamea, 2022. "Economic Sustainability of Mobile Money Payments in Ghana: Does a Tax on Transactions Matter?," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 10(5), December.
    8. Qi Zhou & Yoo-Mi Chin & James D. Stamey & Joon Jin Song, 2020. "Bayesian sensitivity analysis to unmeasured confounding for misclassified data," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 104(4), pages 577-596, December.
    9. de Luna, Xavier & Lundin, Mathias, 2009. "Sensitivity analysis of the unconfoundedness assumption in observational studies," Working Paper Series 2009:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    10. N. J. Welton & A. E. Ades & J. B. Carlin & D. G. Altman & J. A. C. Sterne, 2009. "Models for potentially biased evidence in meta‐analysis using empirically based priors," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(1), pages 119-136, January.
    11. Baltussen, Rob, 2006. "Priority setting of public spending in developing countries: Do not try to do everything for everybody," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(2-3), pages 149-156, October.
    12. Rutten, Frans & Bleichrodt, Han & Brouwer, Werner & Koopmanschap, Marc & Schut, Erik, 2001. "Handbook of Health Economics," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 855-879, September.
    13. Mei-Chuan Hung & Hsin-Ming Lu & Likwang Chen & Ming-Shian Lin & Cheng-Ren Chen & Chong-Jen Yu & Jung-Der Wang, 2012. "Cost per QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Year) and Lifetime Cost of Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation in Taiwan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-10, September.
    14. P. Gustafson & L. C. McCandless & A. R. Levy & S. Richardson, 2010. "Simplified Bayesian Sensitivity Analysis for Mismeasured and Unobserved Confounders," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 1129-1137, December.
    15. Shepherd, Keith D. & Shepherd, Gemma & Walsh, Markus G., 2015. "Land health surveillance and response: A framework for evidence-informed land management," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 93-106.
    16. Elahe Khorasani & Majid Davari & Abbas Kebriaeezadeh & Farshad Fatemi & Ali Akbari Sari & Vida Varahrami, 2022. "A comprehensive review of official discount rates in guidelines of health economic evaluations over time: the trends and roots," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(9), pages 1577-1590, December.
    17. David B. Evans & Dan Chisholm & Tessa Tan-Torres Edejer, 2012. "Generalized Cost-effectiveness Analysis: Principles and Practice," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 48, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Desiree C Wilks & Stephen J Sharp & Ulf Ekelund & Simon G Thompson & Adrian P Mander & Rebecca M Turner & Susan A Jebb & Anna Karin Lindroos, 2011. "Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Fat Mass in Children: A Bias-Adjusted Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(2), pages 1-8, February.
    19. Rob Baltussen & Elly Stolk & Dan Chisholm & Moses Aikins, 2006. "Towards a multi‐criteria approach for priority setting: an application to Ghana," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(7), pages 689-696, July.
    20. Bin Wu & Baijun Dong & Yuejuan Xu & Qiang Zhang & Jinfang Shen & Huafeng Chen & Wei Xue, 2012. "Economic Evaluation of First-Line Treatments for Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in A Health Resource–Limited Setting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-13, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:37:y:2017:i:2:p:139-147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.