What should neurointerventionalists know about cost-effectiveness research, and why should they care?

Health economic research, and particularly cost-effectiveness studies, are gaining increasing importance in medicine, and neurointervention is no exception. In light of rapidly increasing healthcare expenditure in almost every country, cost-effectiveness evaluations have become an important factor for policy decisions on healthcare use and adoption/reimbursement of new treatments. Specifically, politicians, policy makers, and third-party payers have to balance expenditure for neurointerventional treatments with expenditure in other sectors of healthcare, such as cancer treatments or preventive medicine. For a treatment to become accepted as standard of care, we have to ask ourselves: ‘Does this treatment work?’, ‘How much health benefit do we get for our money?’, and ‘How does this compare with other treatments?’ This is the yardstick by which neurointerventional studies will be measured in the future. After efficacy studies have shown that the neurointerventional treatment works in the ideal setting, then effectiveness and cost-effectiveness studies need to demonstrate the...
Source: Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery - Category: Neurosurgery Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research