Generalizability of Economic Analyses.

As health care expenditures account for a greater share of the economy throughout the developed world, it has become increasingly recognized that economic analyses of healthcare interventions are important. Common economic analyses in healthcare include cost analyses, cost-benefit analyses, and cost-effectiveness analyses. A cost analysis examines the costs of the interventions and the downstream costs from the treatment as well, but doesn't not include outcomes. A cost-benefit analysis assumes that the outcomes are similar, and converts all treatments and outcomes into costs. A cost-effectiveness analysis provides the results as an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). The ICER has incremental costs in the numerator divided by incremental outcomes differences in the denominator. The gold standard for a cost-effectiveness analysis is to utilize quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in the denominator which allows CEA ratios to be compared between different clinical settings. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.