Abstract
Objectives: Differences between country-specific guidelines for economic evaluations complicate the execution of international economic evaluations. The aim of this study was to develop cross-European recommendations for the identification, measurement and valuation of resource use and lost productivity in economic evaluations using a Delphi procedure. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify European guidelines on the execution of economic evaluations or costing studies as part of economic evaluations. Guideline recommendations were extracted by two independent reviewers and formed the basis for the first round of the Delphi study, which was conducted among European health economic experts. During three written rounds, consensus (agreement of 67% or higher) was sought on items concerning the identification, measurement and valuation of costs. Results: Recommendations from 18 guidelines were extracted. Consensus among 26 panellists from 17 European countries was reached on 61 of 68 items. The recommendations from the Delphi study are to adopt a societal perspective, to use patient report for measuring resource use and lost productivity, to value both constructs with use of country-specific standardized/unit costs and to use country-specific discounting rates. Conclusion: This study provides consensus-based cross-European recommendations on how to measure and value resource use and lost productivity in economic evaluations. These recommendations are expected to support researchers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers in executing and appraising economic evaluations performed in international contexts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 993-1008 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | European Journal of Health Economics |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Funding
The Identifying Best Practices for Care-Dependent Elderly by Benchmarking Costs and Outcomes of Community Care (IBenC) study team is grateful to the members of the steering committee and to the experts who participated in one or multiple Delphi rounds. The Delphi panel members were M.E. van den Akker-van Marle (Medical Decision Making, Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands), V. Benkovic (Croatian Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Health Economics, Croatia), S. Bustacchini (Gerontological Research Department, Istituto Nazionale di Ricovero e Cura per Anziani, Italy), C. Chiatti (Gerontological Research Department, Istituto Nazionale di Ricovero e Cura per Anziani, Italy), A. Dimova (Department of Health Economics and Management, Medical University of Varna, Bulgaria), C.M. Dintsios (Bayer Vital and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany), S.M.A.A. Evers (Department of Health Services Research, Maastricht University, The Netherlands), L. Hakkaart-van Roijen (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands), E. Heintz (Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment, Sweden), M. Huić (Department for Development, Research and Health Technology Assessment, Agency for Quality and Accreditation in Health Care, Croatia), J. Kigozi (Health Economics Unit, University of Birmingham, UK), S. Knies (National Health Care Institute, The Netherlands), S.K. Lhachimi (Research Group for Evidence-Based Public Health, University of Bremen, Germany), C. O’Neill, School of Business and Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland), P. Petrou (Healthcare Management Programme, Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus), V. Prevolnik-Rupel (Institute for Economic Research in Ljubljana, Slovenia), A. Sarria-Santamera (Institute of Health Carlos III, Spain), J. Švihovec (Charles University Medical Faculty, Czech Republic), T. Tesar (Faculty of Pharmacy, Comenius University, Slovakia), E. Urbonavičiūtė (State Health Care Accreditation Agency, Lithuania), E. Walter (Institute for Pharmaeconomic Research, Austria) and A. Zawada (Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System, Poland). The members of the steering committee were C.D. Dirksen (Maastricht University, The Netherlands), W.B. van den Hout (Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands), H.L.G.R. Nies (Vilans and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and G.A. de Wit (Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands). Funding This work was part of the Identifying Best Practices for Care-Dependent Elderly by Benchmarking Costs and Outcomes of Community Care (IBenC) study, which is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission (Grant number 305912).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System | |
| Croatian Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Health Economics, Croatia | |
| Department for Development, Research and Health Technology Assessment | |
| Heinrich Heine University | |
| Institute for Economic Research in Ljubljana | |
| Istituto Nazionale di Ricovero e Cura per Anziani | |
| State Health Care Accreditation Agency | |
| University Medical Centre Utrecht | |
| University of Birmingham, UK) | |
| Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave | |
| Seventh Framework Programme | 305912 |
| Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam | |
| Instituto de Salud Carlos III | |
| Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum | |
| Medical University - Varna | |
| Universität Bremen | |
| Zorginstituut Nederland |
Keywords
- Costing recommendations
- Cross-country studies
- Delphi technique
- Economic evaluation
