The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care
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Since the early 1990s, the Government of Indonesia has addressed high maternal mortality by attempting to ensure skilled attendance at delivery through access to trained village midwifery services in every village. Yet access to skilled services at delivery continues to prove problematic, with low levels of skilled attendance and high mortality. ⋯ Because rural midwives must earn a significant fraction of their income from private fees this acts to deter women from seeking their help. A new system of targeting poor women utilising the existing state insurance company (ASKES) is an important step in helping to reduce these barriers, but may not be sufficiently generous to protect all those that are considered vulnerable.
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Decision-analytical modelling is widely used in health-care economic evaluations, especially in situations where evaluators lack clinical trial data, and in circumstances where such evaluations factor into reimbursement pricing decisions. This paper aims to improve the understanding and use of modelling techniques in this context, with particular emphasis on Markov modelling. ⋯ Good practice of modelling requires careful planning, conduct and analysis of the model, and needs input from modellers and users.
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In Italy the price setting of medicines reimbursed by the National Health Service is regulated at the central level by AIFA, the national regulatory authority. Prices of non reimbursed medicines are indeed freely established, with some limitations, by pharmaceutical companies. To contain pharmaceutical expenditure and rationalise the whole sector the following measures have been introduced in the past years: a threshold to public pharmaceutical expenditure (PPE); a reference price system (RPS) for off-patent medicines; a pay-back mechanism as an alternative to price cut. In 2008 Italy launched a reform of the pharmaceutical expenditure governance system with the aim to introduce stability and promote development and competitiveness in the pharmaceutical sector.
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Comparative Study
Cost utility analysis of early adjuvant letrozole or anastrozole versus tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with early invasive breast cancer: the UK perspective.
Five years with the aromatase inhibitors letrozole or anastrozole is clinically superior to 5 years tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. This paper analyses the cost-effectiveness of the aromatase inhibitors compared to tamoxifen using the same health economic model. A Markov model describes lifetime incidence of breast cancer events and treatment-related adverse events. ⋯ If a 5-year carry over effect for the reduction in breast cancer events is assumed, the incremental costs per QALY gained compared to tamoxifen are 6,253pounds (95% CI 3,675-14,766pounds) for letrozole and 7,015pounds (95% CI 3,316-31,997pounds) for anastrozole. Five years of letrozole or anastrozole therapy is cost-effective in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. Though the respective confidence intervals show significant overlap, letrozole has a 95% probability of being more cost-effective than tamoxifen at a 20,000pounds QALY value, whilst anastrozole has an 85% probability.