Economic evaluation is widely used to assess many new health care interventions and technologies and is routinely used to allocate scarce health care resources.

The purpose of this course run by the Health Economics Unit within the Centre for Health Policy is to familiarise participants with the methods and techniques that are currently routinely used in evaluations with an emphasis on cost- effectiveness analysis. The course will cover the common steps in an evaluation, from methods for collecting cost and outcome data to analysing, reporting and interpreting the final results.

Who is this course designed for?

The course is designed for those who are or will be engaged in undertaking cost-effectiveness analysis, or for those who need a more detailed understanding of the current methods of health economic evaluation to assist in using the evidence from economic evaluations to inform resource allocation decisions. This will include researchers, consultants and those assessing economic evaluations from public, commercial and academic organisations.

Pre-requisites

There are no formal prerequisites, but participants should have an appreciation of the concepts of health economic evaluation and should be familiar with introductory statistics and Microsoft Excel. The course will be ‘hands-on’, and participants will be expected to bring a laptop computer (and mouse) with Microsoft Excel for use throughout the course. All other software will be supplied as part of the course materials. If you wish to discuss your suitability for this course, or make special arrangements to hire a laptop, please contact: health-economics@unimelb.edu.au

Course dates

The next course will be held on the 21st – 23rd October 2020. Registrations are open.

Course outline

The course will involve a series of modules that build on each other to provide an overview of all the steps required for health economic evaluation.

Day 1

Study Design  Principles (morning)

• Overview of cost-effectiveness analysis?
• What health economic data need to be collected?
• Summary of key  data sources including: clinical trials; linked administrative data; synthesis  of the literature

Techniques for  Analysing Outcomes (afternoon)

• Quantifying  outcomes using life tables and an overview of survival analysis techniques  including Kaplan Meier, as well as parametric survival functions
• Capturing and analysing preference based measures of  quality of life

Day 2

Techniques for  Analysing Costs (morning)

• Features of cost data
• Regression methods for analysing health care cost data

Introduction to  decision models (afternoon)

• Building a decision tree
• Introduction to TreeAge including defining transitions and rewards in terms of costs and utilities

Day 3

Markov modelling  and Applications

Conducting cost-effectiveness analysis including modelling Quality  Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and costs

• Capturing uncertainty and sensitivity analysis
• Presenting and interpreting results for decision makers

Each module will be re-enforced by exercises in Excel and  the specialist modelling software TreeAge and we will demonstrate  aspects of  the course using the statistical software STATA.

Course leaders

A/ Prof. Kim Dalziel, Head of Health Economics Unit, Centre for Health Policy, University of Melbourne

Prof. Andrew Palmer, Head of Health Economics Research Unit, Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania

Dr. An Duy Tran (coordinator), Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Health Policy, University of Melbourne