Health Economics

Question 1

What are the main components of economic evaluation?

Answer 1

Inputs - costs
Outputs - benefits

Question 2

What is an economic evaluation?

Answer 2

A study that compares the cost and benefits of two or more alternative interventions

Question 3

What are the two types of costs?

Answer 3

Fixed costs - capital, overheads
Variable costs - resources used to treat patients

Question 4

What is a semi-fixed costs?

Answer 4

Costs that increase with activity

Question 5

What costs need to be included in an economic evaluation?

Answer 5

Costs depend on the perspective of the evaluation
Perspective - care setting: primary, secondary public sector

Question 6

What are direct costs?

Answer 6

Direct costs are fixed and variable costs that are associated with delivering a health care intervention
Direct medical costs
Direct non medical costs

Question 7

What are indirect costs?

Answer 7

Productivity losses because of illness or condition
Difficult to measure

Question 8

What are intangiable costs?

Answer 8

This is the cost of anxiety, pain or suffering from an illness or treatment

Question 9

What is an average cost?

Answer 9

Total cost of therapy divided by total quantity of treatment units provided

Question 10

What is incremental cost?

Answer 10

The difference in cost that one service or programme imposes over another

Question 11

What is marginal cost

Answer 11

The extra cost of one additional unit of product or service delivered

Question 12

What outcomes are measured in economic evaluation?

Answer 12

Effectiveness
Quality of life
Utility
Expressing benefits as monetary values

Question 13

What is effectiveness?

Answer 13

Outcome of an intervention or service measured in natural units

Question 14

What are the general outcome measures of effectiveness?

Answer 14

Cases successfully diagnosed or treated
Mortality
Life years saved
Life years gained

Question 15

Factors that impact on quality of life

Answer 15

Functional ability
Social interactions
Psychological well-being
Cognitive factors
Subjective factors

Question 16

Two quality of life measures

Answer 16

Generic
Disease-specific

Question 17

Advantages of disease specific measures

Answer 17

Domains are relevent to the disease under investigation
Could be useful tool to compare different interventions

Question 18

Disadvantages of disease specific measures

Answer 18

Not relevant to other diseases
Cannot be used to benchmark against other diseases

Question 19

Advantages of generic measures

Answer 19

Useful when looking at groups of patients who have different illnesses
Can compare outcomes in different patient groups

Question 20

What are the core-domains around quality of life?

Answer 20

Physical functioning, physical role
Bodily pain, general health
Vitality, social functioning
Emotional role
Mental health

Question 21

What is utility

Answer 21

The value attached by an individual for a specific level of health status of a specific health

Question 22

Advantages of utility

Answer 22

When looking at groups of patients with different illnesses
Compare different outcomes in different patient groups

Question 23

What is willingeness to pay?

Answer 23

Method to see how much someone would be willing to pay to avoid an illness or obtain the benefits of a treatment

Question 24

Disadvantage of willingness to pay

Answer 24

Depends on the patient’s ability ot pay - people may be unemployed, in deprived areas etc

Question 25

What are the different types of economic evaluation?

Answer 25

Cost effective analysis
Cost utility analysis
Cost benefit analysis

Question 26

What is cost minimisation analysis?

Answer 26

The outcome of treatment is the same so you choose the least cost alternative

Question 27

What is cost effectiveness analysis?

Answer 27

The outcome reported in a single unit of measurement measured in natural units

Question 28

What is cost utility analysis?

Answer 28

The outcomes are expressed as QALYs