title: Pharmacoeconomics and health policy. Current applications and prospects for the future.
abstract: The use of pharmacoeconomic tools has grown dramatically in the past decade as provision of healthcare throughout the industrialised world has required increased cost consciousness. However, pharmacoeconomic analysis has not yet been fully exploited as a conceptual underpinning for public or private health policy decisions. Pharmacoeconomics is likely to become an increasingly important basis for health policy decisions as a number of significant dynamics evolve in the marketplace, including: (i) consumers acting on their growing access to information and becoming more actively involved in treatment decisions; (ii) payers, providers and patients deepening their interaction and overcoming their traditional (narrow) focus on either costs or benefits alone; and (iii) manufacturers being challenged by other healthcare constituencies as sponsors of cost-based outcomes studies.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche, Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montréal, Québec, Canada. pgreenberg@ag-inc.com
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Greenberg
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arcelus
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Birnbaum
authors.forename: P Y
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Cremieux
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: LeLorier
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ouellette
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Slavin
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D017850:Economics, Pharmaceutical / Q000639:trends*; D005544:Forecasting; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans