UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of Quantitative Health SciencesDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2007-01-24Keywords
Cost-Benefit AnalysisDatabases, Factual
Evidence-Based Medicine
Health Care Costs
Humans
Orthopedics
Biostatistics
Epidemiology
Health Services Research
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Worldwide, programs dealing with musculoskeletal health are required to set priorities and allocate resources within the constraint of limited funding. There is increasing pressure for medical technology assessment, which traditionally has involved evaluating safety and effectiveness, to also include consideration of cost effectiveness. We updated our database of orthopaedic cost-effectiveness studies, critically reviewed their methods, and examined trends over time. Current analyses have numerous shortcomings, such as the inclusion of relatively few studies, inconsistent methodologic approaches, and lack of transparency. The wide variation in cost-effectiveness ratios observed among current interventions suggests efficiency can be improved. Despite reimbursement authorities in many other countries formally considering cost-effectiveness when determining coverage of new technologies, Medicare has been resistant to considering costs of treatments. Regardless of this policy deficiency, conducting cost-effectiveness analyses represents a prudent step forward in illuminating the tradeoffs involved in difficult resource allocation decisions, and there is an urgent need to consider economic impact in future studies using standardized and transparent methods.Source
Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2007 Apr;457:42-8. Link to article on publisher's siteDOI
10.1097/BLO.0b013e31803372c9Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/47791PubMed ID
17242614Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1097/BLO.0b013e31803372c9