The Cost of Critical Care Why do an Economic Evaluation?

"The evidence-based approach has long been established in clinical decision making, as a means of ensuring that decisions are reached on the basis of sound scientific evidence and reasoning to avoid the pitfalls of anecdotal recall and unsubstantiated empiricism."

Economic evaluation allows, for any level of resource allocation, a method of determining optimal health benefit.

There has been a shifting of the evidence based paradigm away from the strictly clinical setting, particularly in light of cost containment issues in the United States, towards the economic implications of applying clinically proven programs. It is essential that, within this paradigm, economic decisions and decisions regarding program selection and health care planning need to follow a similar standardised rigor according to an accepted methodological norm.

Just as the reliance upon insufficient, unsubstantiated evidence in concert with unproven clinical opinion often leads to substandard diagnostic and therapeutic choices, the use of haphazard and random criteria also leads to inefficient and inequitable allocation and expenditure of resources, with suboptimal and submaximal clinical yield [Chalfin 1998]. Economic evaluations have become increasingly important as a method to quantify trade-offs between improving clinical outcomes and increased health care expenditures in an era of escalating health care costs (Chalfin 1995).

As budgets tighten, economic analyses can help decision-makers set priorities for funding health care programs by allowing a comparative quantitative framework (Detsky 1990).

Taken together thus are the clinical and economic consequences of treatment. The purpose of economic evaluations is to offer information that can be used to maximise health benefits for any given level of resource consumption (Heyland 1999).

Please note: these tutorials are for personal study purposes only.  They are not currently peer reviewed, and no responsibility will be taken for mistakes or inaccuracies. Reproduction of information is forbidden. All material is copyrighted by the GasWorks Group.