Objective: There are multiple reasons for missing data in observational studies; excluding patients with missing data can lead to significant bias. In this study, we evaluated several methods for assigning missing values to health service utilisation. Design and setting: Cancer of the Prostate...

Evidence produced by multinational trial-based cost-effectiveness studies is often used to inform decisions concerning the adoption of new healthcare technologies. A key issue relating to the use of this type of evidence is the extent to which trial-wide economic results are applicable to every...

Sample size and power for cost-effectiveness analysis depend on assumptions about the difference in cost and effect, the standard deviations of cost and effect, the correlation of the difference in cost and effect, the α and β errors and maximum willingness to pay (W). The first seven of these...

The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has used its Single Technology Appraisal (STA) programme to assess several drugs for cancer. Typically, the evidence submitted by the manufacturer comes from one short-term randomized controlled trial (RCT) demonstrating...

Methods for determining sample size requirements for cost-effectiveness studies are reviewed and illustrated. Traditional methods based on tests of hypothesis and power arguments are given for the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and incremental net benefit (INB). In addition, a full...

Basic sample size and power formulae for cost-effectiveness analysis have been established in the literature. These formulae are reviewed and the similarities and differences between sample size and power for cost-effectiveness analysis and for the analysis of other continuous variables such as...

Most health management programs, such as disease management or health promotion/wellness interventions, implement targeted interventions for an identified high-risk group, leaving the remaining non-managed lower-risk population as controls. This is problematic from an outcomes perspective...

Objective: Diagnosis-based risk-adjustment measures are increasingly being promoted as disease management tools. We compared the ability of several types of predictive models to identify future high-risk older people likely to benefit from disease management. Study design: Veterans Health...