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PharmacoEconomics
Published in: PharmacoEconomics 7/2005

01-07-2005 | Review Article

Introducing economic evaluation as a policy tool in Korea: Will decision makers get quality information?

A critical review of published Korean economic evaluations

Authors: Prof. Kun-Sei Lee, Werner B. F. Brouwer, Sang-Il Lee, Hye-Won Koo

Published in: PharmacoEconomics | Issue 7/2005

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Abstract

Interest in the use of economic evaluations in Korea as an aid for healthcare decision makers has been growing rapidly since the financial crisis of the Korean National Health Insurance fund and the separation in 2000 of the roles of prescribing and dispensing drugs. The Korean Health Insurance Review Agency (HIRA) is considering making it mandatory for pharmaceutical companies to submit the results of an economic evaluation when demanding reimbursement of new pharmaceuticals. The usefulness of the results of economic evaluations depends highly on the quality of the studies. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to provide a critical review of economic evaluations of healthcare technologies published in the Korean context.
Our results show that many studies did not meet international standards. Study designs were suboptimal, study perspectives and types were often stated incompletely, time periods were often too short, and outcome measures were often less than ideal. In addition, some articles did not distinguish between measurement and valuation of resource use. Capital, overhead and productivity costs were often omitted. Only half of the studies performed sensitivity analyses.
In order to further rationalise resource allocation in the Korean healthcare sector, the quality of the information provided through economic evaluations needs to improve. Developing clear guidelines and educating and training researchers in performing economic evaluations is necessary.
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Metadata
Title
Introducing economic evaluation as a policy tool in Korea: Will decision makers get quality information?
A critical review of published Korean economic evaluations
Authors
Prof. Kun-Sei Lee
Werner B. F. Brouwer
Sang-Il Lee
Hye-Won Koo
Publication date
01-07-2005
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Published in
PharmacoEconomics / Issue 7/2005
Print ISSN: 1170-7690
Electronic ISSN: 1179-2027
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-200523070-00005

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