ABSHD Flashcards
What is best evidence?
Findings of rigorously conducted research
In evidence-based healthcare, what kind of evidence is obtained for drugs practices and interventions?
Effectiveness
Cost-effectiveness
What are the common consequences of using healthcare that is not evidence-based?
Waste of resources
Creates inequities
Causes harm
What is evidence-based practice?
Evidence based practice involves the integration of individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.
Why are systematic reviews useful?
- By appraising and integrating findings, they offer both quality control and increased certainty.
- They offer authoritative, generalisable and up to date conclusions
- They save clinicians from having to locate and appraise studies for themselves
- They may reduce delay between research discoveries and implementation.
- They can help to prevent biased decisions being made
- They can be relatively easily converted into guidelines and recommendations.
How can we assess the quality of evidence?
Using a critical appraisal tool or instrument. These suggest the things to look for and the questions to ask of in research articles.
What are the two categories of critiques of the evidence based practice movement?
Practical criticisms- around the possibility of evidence based practice
Philosophical criticisms- around the desirability of evidence based practice
Give some examples of practical critiques of evidence based practice.
-Impossible task to maintain and create systematic reviews across all specialities
-Challenging and expensing to disseminate and implement findings
RCT’s are not always feasible or even necessary/desirable eg. Due to ethical considerations
-Choice of outcomes is often very biomedical
-Requires good faith on the part of pharmaceutical companies
Give some examples of philosophical critiques of evidence-based practice.
- Does not align with doctors’ modes of reasoning
- Population-level outcomes doesn’t mean that an intervention will work for a certain individual
- Evidence based practice has the potential to create unreflective rule followers
- Might be understood as a means of legitimising rationing
- Professional responsibility/autonomy
What are the difficulties of getting evidence into practice?
- Evidence exists but doctors don’t all know about it
- Doctors know about the evidence but don’t use it
- Organisational systems cannot support innovation
- Commissioning decisions reflect different priorities
- Resources not available to implement change
What does the Cochrane collaboration logo show?
It is a systematic review.
Why are priorities set for healthcare?
Scarcity of resources which could be used in many ways, demand outstrips supply.
What types of new health interventions are relatively expensive?
- New cancer therapies often expensive and generally expand the pool of candidates
- Often don’t cure but increase survival
- Preventer drugs
What are the two forms of rationing?
Explicit rationing- based on defined rules of entitlement
Implicit rationing- care is limited, but neither the decisions nor the bases for those decisions are clearly expressed
What are the problems associated with implicit rationing?
- leads to inequities and discrimination
- open to abuse
- decisions based on perceptions of ‘social deservingness’
- doctors appear increasingly unwilling to do it
Define implicit rationing.
Implicit rationing is the allocation of resources through individual clinical decisions without the criteria for those decisions being explicit.
Define explicit rationing.
Explicit health care rationing or priority setting is the use of institutional procedures for the systematic allocation of resources within the healthcare system
What are the advantages of explicit rationing?
- Transparent, accountable
- Opportunity for debate
- More clearly evidence-based
- More opportunities for equity in decision-making
What are the disadvantages of explicit rationing?
- Very complex
- Heterogeneity of patients and illnesses
- Patient and professional hostility
- Impact on clinical freedom
- Some evidence of patient distress
What does NICE do?
Provides guidance on whether treatments (new or existing) can be recommended for use in the NHS in England. It uses evidence of clinical and cost effectiveness to inform a national judgement on the value of a treatment relative to alternative uses of resources.
What role does NICE have with regards to expensive treatments?
If approved, local NHS organisations must fund them sometimes with adverse consequences for other priorities.
If not approved, patients are effectively denied access to them.
Define opportunity cost.
Once you have used a resource in one way, you no longer have it to use in another way.
What does utility mean in terms of healthcare economics?
The value an individual places on a health state.
How can we promote equity in terms of rationing?
Use explicit rationing instead of implicit rationing.
How is opportunity cost measured?
Benefits foregone - cost is viewed as sacrifice rather than financial expenditure. What could you have paid for with the same amount of money you paid for this treatment?
What are the two types of efficiency and the differences between them?
Technical efficiency- you are interested in the most efficient way of meeting a need
Allocative efficiency- you are choosing between the many needs to be met
What does economic analysis compare?
The inputs (resources) and outputs (benefits and value attached to them) of alternative interventions. This allows better decisions to be made about which interventions represent best value for investment.
What are the different categories of costs?
Costs of: Healthcare services Patient's time Care-giving Employers, other employees and the rest of society
What are the different categories of the benefits of health interventions?
Impact on health status
Savings in other healthcare resources if the patients health state is improved
Improved productivity if patient or family members return to work earlier
What are the four types of economic evaluation?
- Cost minimisation analysis
- Cost effectiveness analysis
- Cost benefit analysis
- Cost utility analysis
Describe cost minimisation analysis.
Outcomes assumed to be equivalent
Focus is on costs (inputs)
Not often relevant as outcomes are rarely equivalent.
Describe cost effectiveness analysis.
Used to compare drugs or interventions which have a common health outcome
Compared in terms of cost per unit outcome
If costs are higher for one treatment, but benefits are too, need to calculate how much extra benefit is obtained for extra cost.
Which method of economic evaluation would answer this question:
Is extra benefit worth extra cost?
Cost effectiveness analysis
What is cost benefit analysis?
All inputs and outputs valued in monetary terms
Can allow comparison with interventions outside healthcare
There are methodological difficulties- putting monetary value on non-monetary benefits such as lives saved
What is cost utility analysis?
Focuses on quality of health outcomes produced or foregone
Most frequently used measure is quality adjusted life year (QALY).
Interventions can be compared in cost per QALY terms.
What does QALY mean?
Quality adjusted life year
They adjust life expectancy for quality of life.
1 year of perfect health = 1 QALY
Assumes that 1 year in perfect health = 10 years with a quality of life of 0.10 perfect health.
Why do we use QALY’s instead of life years gained?
To use cost-effectiveness as a guide to decision-making in a wide ranged of settings.
Life years gained are only useful where survival is the main outcome.
QALY’s allow us to measure survival and quality of life.
How is quality of life measured?
Measuring health on a generic quality of life instrument- EQ-5D
A man is diagnosed with cancer. He is told he has 4 years to live but his QoL will be 0.2 of perfect health. Interpret this in terms of QALYS
0.8 QALYs
Therefore, there is no gain in QALYS associated with treatment.
What alternatives are there to QALYs?
Health Year Equivalents (HYEs)
Saved-young-life equivalents (SAVEs)
Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)