Cost Benefit Analysis In Spinal Surgery: Is It Feasable?

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Bones / Orthopaedics
Article Date: 07 Jan 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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A straight forward concept allowing health care decision makers to compare costs and benefits of a specific program in the same units (i.e. monetary values) is cost benefit analysis (CBA) which elicits the consumer's monetary valuations for program benefits. Due to methodological issues a broad spread use of CBA in health care has been hindered so far.

The objective of this study was to estimate preference-based "utility weights", for six increasingly severe health states that occur with chronic infection with the hepatitis B virus. This information was elicited from respondents living in six jurisdictions, in North America, Europe and Asia, that ranged from low to high prevalence of chronic hepatitis B infection.

A recent study "A Cost Benefit Analysis Using Contingent Valuation Techniques: A Feasibility Study In Spinal Surgery", to be published in Value in Health, has investigated the feasibility of the CBA approach in the field of spinal surgery. Besides demonstrating that it is principally possible to conduct such studies in spinal surgery, problems arising from methodology and a first estimate of the cost-benefit ratios for the most frequently performed spinal interventions were discussed. The study was co-authored by Mathias Haefeli, Atul Sukthankar and Norbert Boos of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Zurich, CH, Achim Elfering of the Department of Psychology at the University of Berne, CH, and Emma McIntosh and Alastair Gray of the Health Economics Research Centre of the University of Oxford, GB.

Spinal surgery is one of the most expanding fields of Orthopaedic surgery generating increasing costs for health care systems. Although experience in practice suggests high success rates, there is only little scientific evidence on the therapeutic and cost-effectiveness of spinal interventions.

Says Prof. Boos, head of spinal surgery in Zurich, "Although increasing data are gathered on the societal costs and burden of chronic LBP, virtually no information is available for the cost-benefit-relation of surgical interventions. This is the first study of its kind in exploring patients' willingness to pay for spinal surgery and estimating the perceived benefit of these interventions."

Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 3,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.

ISPOR is a nonprofit, international organization that strives to translate pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research into practice to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly, and efficiently.

Value in Health Volume 11 Issue 5
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