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Using Value of Information Analysis to Prioritise Health Research

Some Lessons from Recent UK Experience

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Abstract

Decisions to adopt, reimburse or issue guidance on the use of health technologies are increasingly being informed by explicit cost-effectiveness analyses of the alternative interventions. Healthcare systems also invest heavily in research and development to support these decisions. However, the increasing transparency of adoption and reimbursement decisions, based on formal analysis, contrasts sharply with research prioritisation and commissioning. This is despite the fact that formal measures of the value of evidence generated by research are readily available.

The results of two recent opportunities to apply value of information analysis to directly inform policy decisions about research priorities in the UK are presented. These include a pilot study for the UK National Co-ordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA) and a pilot study for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). We demonstrate how these results can be used to address a series of policy questions, including: is further research required to support the use of a technology and, if so, what type of research would be most valuable? We also show how the results can be used to address other questions such as, which patient subgroups should be included in subsequent research, which comparators and endpoints should be included, and what length of follow up would be most valuable.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge all those involved in the two pilot studies that are discussed in this paper: S. Eggington, L. Ginnelly, S. Griffin, C. McCabe, S. Palmer, Z. Philips, P. Tappenden and A. Wailoo.

This work was supported by grants received from the UK Medical Research Council Health Services Research Collaboration. The authors have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Economics, Alcuin A Block, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, England

    Karl P. Claxton & Mark J. Sculpher

  2. Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, England

    Karl P. Claxton

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  1. Karl P. Claxton
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  2. Mark J. Sculpher
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Correspondence to Karl P. Claxton.

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Claxton, K.P., Sculpher, M.J. Using Value of Information Analysis to Prioritise Health Research. Pharmacoeconomics 24, 1055–1068 (2006). https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-200624110-00003

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