Economic evaluation of programs or interventions in the management of rheumatoid arthritis: defining a consensus-based reference case.
Improvement in the quality of economic evaluation could be documented as a consequence of international and national standardization efforts. One such effort is the recommendation that all economic evaluations in a given field produce findings in a standard format using a reference case. A reference case-based economic evaluation would adhere to specific settings with regard to outcomes, comparators, modeling techniques, and use of costs to facilitate comparisons among economic evaluations performed with the same objective. In the past, the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) consensus conference has successfully developed widely used, consensus-based outcome criteria for clinical improvement in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Present efforts are being directed at the development of recommendations for the type and format of a reference case economic evaluation for newly developed disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD). This document discusses 13 important elements that experts considered to be relevant for the development of a reference case recommendation for economic evaluations in RA. We provide the rationale for each element and discuss how each element has been addressed in published economic evaluations of DMARD.
Maetzel
Andreas
A
Division of Clinical Decision Making and Health Care Research, Toronto General Research Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. martzel@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Tugwell
Peter
P
Boers
Maarten
M
Guillemin
Francis
F
Coyle
Doug
D
Drummond
Mike
M
Wong
John B
JB
Gabriel
Sherine E
SE
D018501:Antirheumatic Agents / Q000191:economics; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000191:economics* / Q000628:therapy*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D032921:Consensus; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D017850:Economics, Pharmaceutical; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D018803:Models, Economic; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*
D018501:Antirheumatic Agents