title: Health economic assessment: a methodological primer.
abstract: This review article aims to provide an introduction to the methodology of health economic assessment of a health technology. Attention is paid to defining the fundamental concepts and terms that are relevant to health economic assessments. The article describes the methodology underlying a cost study (identification, measurement and valuation of resource use, calculation of costs), an economic evaluation (type of economic evaluation, the cost-effectiveness plane, trial- and model-based economic evaluation, discounting, sensitivity analysis, incremental analysis), and a budget impact analysis. Key references are provided for those readers who wish a more advanced understanding of health economic assessments.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Pharmaceutical Care and Pharmaco-economics, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. steven.simoens@pharm.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Simoens
mesh_terms: D001530:Belgium; D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000191:economics*; D002017:Budgets; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003657:Decision Making; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D018803:Models, Economic