A study by health economists at the University of York has, for the first time, produced an estimate of the impact on other NHS patients of new and more costly drugs and other treatments. This research suggests a refinement of the way the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence...

This paper describes the key principles of why an assessment of uncertainty and its consequences are critical for the types of decisions that a body such as the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has to make. In doing so, it poses the question of whether formal...

The use of decision-analytic modelling for the purpose of health technology assessment (HTA) has increased dramatically in recent years. Several guidelines for best practice have emerged in the literature; however, there is no agreed standard for what constitutes a `good model' or how models...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been using a cost-effectiveness threshold range between Lstg 20_000 and Lstg 30_000 for over 7 years. What the cost-effectiveness threshold represents, what the appropriate level is for NICE to use, and what the other factors...

Objective: To conduct a Bayesian value-of-information analysis of the cost effectiveness of pentoxifylline (vs placebo) as an adjunct to compression for venous leg ulcers. Methods: A probabilistic Markov model was developed to estimate mean clinical benefits and costs associated with oral...

In a recent leading article in PharmacoEconomics, Nuijten described some methods for incorporating uncertainty into health economic models and for utilising the information on uncertainty regarding the cost effectiveness of a therapy in resource allocation decision-making. His proposals are...