The economic evaluation of health technologies has become a major tool in health policy in Europe for prioritizing the allocation of health resources and the approval of new technologies. The objective of this proposal was to develop guidelines for the economic evaluation of health technologies in Spain. A group of researchers specialized in economic evaluation of health technologies developed the document reported here, following the initiative of other countries in this framework, to provide recommendations for the standardization of methodology applicable to economic evaluation of health technologies in Spain. Recommendations appear under 17 headings or sections. In each case, the recommended requirements to be satisfied by economic evaluation of health technologies are provided. Each recommendation is followed by a commentary providing justification and compares and contrasts the proposals with other available alternatives. The economic evaluation of health technologies should have a role in assessing health technologies, providing useful information for decision making regarding their adoption, and they should be transparent and based on scientific evidence.

Over the last few years, economic evaluation of health technologies has become a major tool used by European health policy decision-makers to create strategies for prioritizing the allocation of health resources and the approval of new technologies. Spain was a pioneer in proposing the standardization of methodology applicable to economic evaluation studies. However, because health policy decision-makers refused to support the initiative, the methodology was never put into practice. In the medium term, evidence of the economic value of new health technologies financed by the national health system will probably be increasingly required. At that time, stakeholders and decision-makers will have to agree upon a clear and concise set of rules on the technical and methodological issues that must be followed by economic evaluations of health technologies. Consequently, we have provided guidelines and recommendations for producing first-rate economic evaluations. The recommendations appear under seventeen headings or sections. In each case, the recommended requirements to be satisfied by an economic evaluation of health technologies are provided and each recommendation is followed by a commentary, providing a justification and comparing and contrasting the proposal with other available alternatives.

The use of probabilistic Markov models requires the integration of concepts from economics, epidemiology, statistics, and the clinical setting. Some stages of the process, such as the construction and processing of these models, the management of absolute and relative risks and of statistical distributions, often pose major difficulties but are key steps required to reproduce the disease with validity.

BackgroundThis study aimed to assess the costs and clinical benefits of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) administered annually to the 65-year-old cohort in Spain versus the alternative of not vaccinating patients and treating them only when infected.MethodsCases of pneumococcal disease avoided were calculated through a dynamic model based on the work of Anderson and May (1999). Sixty-six percent of the 65-year-old cohort was assumed to have been vaccinated with one PCV13 dose (304,492 subjects). Base-case estimated vaccine effectiveness and serotype coverage were 58% and 60%, respectively. Disease-related costs were calculated based on published data.ResultsOver the 5-year period, a total of 125,906 cases of pneumococcal disease would be avoided. Net savings of €102 million would be obtained. The cost-saving distribution was not homogeneous, starting in the 2nd year and increasing through the 5th. To demonstrate model robustness, an additional scenario analysis was performed using extreme values of model parameters (vaccination programme coverage, vaccine effectiveness, discount rate and disease costs). Under those scenarios, net savings were always achieved.ConclusionsBased on the assumptions of the model, the 65-year-cohort pneumococcal vaccination campaign appears to be a cost-saving intervention in the Spanish population under different scenarios.

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