-
Int J Technol Assess Health Care · Apr 2010
Dear policy maker: have you made up your mind? A discrete choice experiment among policy makers and other health professionals.
- Marc A Koopmanschap, Elly A Stolk, and Xander Koolman.
- Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. koopmanschap@bmg.eur.nl
- Int J Technol Assess Health Care. 2010 Apr 1; 26 (2): 198-204.
ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to get insight in what criteria as presented in Health technology assessment (HTA) studies are important for decision makers in healthcare priority setting.MethodsWe performed a discrete choice experiment among Dutch healthcare professionals (policy makers, HTA experts, advanced HTA students). In twenty-seven choice sets, we asked respondents to elect reimbursement of one of two different healthcare interventions, which represented unlabeled, curative treatments. Both treatments were incrementally compared with usual care. The results of the interventions were normal outputs of HTA studies with a societal perspective. Results were analyzed using a multinomial logistic regression model. Upon completion of the questionnaire, we discussed the exercise with policy makers.ResultsSeverity of disease, costs per quality-adjusted life-year gained, individual health gain, and the budget impact were the most decisive decision criteria. A program targeting more severe diseases increased the probability of reimbursement dramatically. Uncertainty related to cost-effectiveness was also important. Respondents preferred health gains that include quality of life improvements over extension of life without improved quality of life. Savings in productivity costs were not crucial in decision making, although these are to be included in Dutch reimbursement dossiers for new drugs. Regarding subgroups, we found that policy makers attached relatively more weight to disease severity than others but less to uncertainty.ConclusionsDutch policy makers and other healthcare professionals seem to have reasonably well articulated preferences: six of seven attributes were significant. Disease severity, budget impact, and cost-effectiveness were very important. The results are comparable to international studies, but reveal a larger set of important decision criteria.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.