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PharmacoEconomics
Published in: PharmacoEconomics 11/2006

01-11-2006 | Conference Paper

Information Created to Evade Reality (ICER)

Things We Should Not Look to for Answers

Authors: Dr Stephen Birch, Amiram Gafni

Published in: PharmacoEconomics | Issue 11/2006

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Abstract

Cost-effectiveness analysis has been advocated in the health economics methods literature and adopted in a growing number of jurisdictions as an evidence base for decision makers charged with maximising health gains from available resources.
This paper critically appraises the information generated by cost-effectiveness analysis, in particular the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). It is shown that this ratio is used as comparative information on what are non-comparable options and hence evades the reality of the decision-maker’s problem. The theoretical basis for the ICER approach is the simplification of theoretical assumptions that have no relevance to the decision maker’s context. Although alternative, well established methods can be used for addressing the decision maker’s problem, faced with the increasing evidence of the theoretical and empirical failures of the cost-effectiveness approach, some proponents of the approach now propose changing the research question to suit the approach as opposed to adopting a more appropriate method for the prevailing and continuing problem.
As long as decision makers are concerned with making the best use of available healthcare resources, cost-effectiveness analysis and the ICER should not be where we look for answers.
Footnotes
1
The use of trade names is for product identification purposes only and does not imply endorsement.
 
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Metadata
Title
Information Created to Evade Reality (ICER)
Things We Should Not Look to for Answers
Authors
Dr Stephen Birch
Amiram Gafni
Publication date
01-11-2006
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Published in
PharmacoEconomics / Issue 11/2006
Print ISSN: 1170-7690
Electronic ISSN: 1179-2027
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-200624110-00008

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