Standardising resource-use measurement: mission impossible?

Abstract:

Despite the importance of the 'cost' part of cost-effectiveness, resource-use measurement in empirical studies has had a chequered history.  Typically, health economists will collect data from patients by means of questionnaires that are often anything but transparently developed and of unknown validity.  Old questionnaires may be recycled, with little validation, or new questionnaires may be developed with minimal input from potential users.  Routinely held data sources, such as the Hospital Episode Statistics dataset, which records all inpatient, outpatient and emergency hospital contacts in England, offer an alternative means of collating resources, but may be costly to access, not available in a timely fashion and do not necessarily include all the resources of interest.

In this seminar, we will look at recent developments in resource-use measurement for economic evaluation.  With a particular focus on ModRUM (bristol.ac.uk/modrum) and PECUNIA (pecunia-project.eu/), two recently developed resource-use instruments taking different approaches, we will consider how the future of resource-use measurement can be improved. 

Kirsty Garfield

William Hollingworth

Joanna Thorn