Open AccessEconomic analysis of service and delivery interventions in health care
Author(s) -
Matt Sutton,
Steph Garfield-Birkbeck,
Graham Martin,
Rachel Meacock,
Stephen Morris,
Mark Sculpher,
Andrew Street,
Samuel Watson,
Richard Lilford
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
health services and delivery research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2050-4357
pISSN - 2050-4349
DOI - 10.3310/hsdr06050
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , context (archaeology) , economic evaluation , service (business) , service delivery framework , cost–benefit analysis , cost effectiveness analysis , health care , business , medicine , cost effectiveness , nursing , risk analysis (engineering) , economics , marketing , economic growth , political science , paleontology , pathology , law , biology
There are well-developed guidelines for economic evaluation of clearly defined clinical interventions, but no such guidelines for economic analysis of service interventions. Distinctive challenges for analysis of service interventions include diffuse effects, wider system impacts, and variability in implementation, costs and effects. Cost-effectiveness evidence is as important for service interventions as for clinical interventions. There is also an important role for wider forms of economic analysis to increase our general understanding of context, processes and behaviours in the care system. Methods exist to estimate the cost-effectiveness of service interventions before and after introduction, to measure patient and professional preferences, to reflect the value of resources used by service interventions, and to capture wider system effects, but these are not widely applied. Future priorities for economic analysis should be to produce cost-effectiveness evidence and to increase our understanding of how service interventions affect, and are affected by, the care system.