With increasing pressure on national healthcare budgets, all healthcare professionals should have a basic understanding of the finite nature of healthcare resources, and the need to make choices between treatments based on a cost-benefit comparison. This book is an introduction to economic evaluation for those with little or no knowledge of economics or health economics.

This textbook gives an overview of economic issues specific to healthcare, and describes the main types of economic evaluation: cost effectiveness, cost utility and cost benefit analysis. The use of decision analysis to design and carry out economic evaluations is discussed. Preferred statistical methods for handling costs, current approaches to dealing with uncertainty and quantifying patient preferences using discrete choice experiments are explained. Each chapter contains worked examples and questions.

This text will be invaluable to pharmacists and pharmacy students as well as to other healthcare professionals, researchers and managers.

1. Overview of Health Economics

2. Rationing Healthcare

3. Costs of Healthcare

4. Measuring Patient Outcomes for Use in Economic Evaluations

5. Cost Effectiveness Analysis

6. Cost Utility Analysis

7. Cost Benefit Analysis

8. Introduction to the Use of Decision Analysis in Economic Evaluations

9. Using Economic Evaluations to Inform Decision-making in Healthcare

10. Statistical Handling of Data in Economic Analysis

11. Valuing Preferences: Useful Resources in Health Economics and Economic Evaluation

Glossary

Index