A/Prof Tracy Comans and Dr Kim-Huong Nguyen: Application of economic evaluation in health technology assessment in Australia

Speaker:

A/Prof Tracy Comans and Dr Kim-Huong Nguyen

Abstract:

Health technology assessment (HTA) involves undertaking an evaluation of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of healthcare technologies to inform funding decisions. New technologies such as pharmaceuticals, surgical and medical procedures and devices, diagnostic or screening tests, and models of care can be evaluated. Cost-effectiveness analysis is an economic evaluation approach that generates evidence-based information on the economic value (of the health technologies) to assist in and improve decision making when allocating health care resources. Australia has a long history of health technology assessment of pharmaceuticals. The Pharmaceutical Benefit Advisory Committee (PBAC) was one of the earliest international HTA bodies. Recently, the Medical Benefits Advisory Committee adopted a similar HTA process to assess non-pharmaceuticals technologies.

Speaker bios:

A/Prof Comans is an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Fellow in the Centre for Health Services Research, University of Queensland, and an adjunct research fellow in Metro North Hospital and Health Service. Her research involves applying economic models to investigate the cost-effectiveness of health care interventions, and leading and developing health services research focused on older people, allied health and rehabilitation services. She is the lead of the health economics sub-unit of the NHMRC Cognitive and Related Functional Decline Partnership Centre. She has degrees in physiotherapy and economics (Hons), along with a clinical background as a physiotherapist with special interests in aged care, dementia and rehabilitation.

Dr. Nguyen is a research fellow in Health Economics at the Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland. Her research activities cover: economic evaluation of health technologies and social interventions; measurement and valuation of health outcomes and health preferences; measurement of productivity, efficiency and equity in healthcare; and the economics of dementia. She has more than ten years of lecturing experience in a variety of economics and health economics subjects (at UQ, QUT and Griffith University). In the past four years, she has worked as a health economist supporting research and evaluation of interventions for dementia dyads under the NHMRC’s Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre. She is currently also holding a joint appointment with Metro North Hospital and Health Service District to provide research expertise and build capacity in health economics.