Priority setting in practice: what is the best way to compare costs and benefits?

Wilson, Edward C. F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8369-1577, Peacock, Stuart J. and Ruta, Danny (2009) Priority setting in practice: what is the best way to compare costs and benefits? Health Economics, 18 (4). pp. 467-478. ISSN 1099-1050

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Abstract

Prioritizing candidates for health-care expenditure using cost per Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY) is a helpful but insufficient means of ranking alternative uses for scarce health-care funds at the local level. This is because QALYs do not by themselves capture all criteria decision makers need to take into account. Other criteria such as reducing inequalities, meeting national and local priorities and public acceptability also feature in the decision maker's utility function. Programme budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) is an established framework for systematic priority setting in which a 'weighted benefit score' for each option is calculated based on all relevant decision-making criteria. Ranking options as a ratio of cost to benefit is desirable and necessary to ensure efficiency. In this paper we review a number of approaches to scoring costs and benefits of options in a PBMA context. Several approaches rank by benefit score alone, rather than efficiency (cost per unit of benefit). Of those that do rank by efficiency, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks. The optimal approach is far from clear, with each technique having its own strengths and weaknesses. A deliberative approach using summaries of costs and benefits of options as a basis for discussion may be preferable.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Source:HEG-endnote12-09 Note:
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Public Health and Health Services Research (former - to 2023) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Health Economics
Depositing User:	EPrints Services
Date Deposited:	25 Nov 2010 11:08
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 00:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/11520
DOI:	10.1002/hec.1380

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