Health Economics & HTA

Coordinator: Patrizio Armeni

 

Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment Area (HE & HTA) undertakes a range of methodological and applied research in health economics with particular attention on economic evaluation of healthcare technologies/programs and their use in healthcare decision making. Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment Area (HE & HTA)  conducts economic and statistical analysis using data from randomized controlled trials, decision analytic modelling studies, observational and retrospective data sets.

The general aim of our research is to advance the frontier of knowledge in methods and applications in order to impact the health systems and to support them promoting evidence-based decision making for medical technologies. We support both the industry and policymakers through the design and execution of high-standard economic evaluation analyses. A special attention is dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge, not limiting our activity only to academic publications, but also addressing specialized publications and press, stakeholder involvement in workshops, roundtables and events.  

The Area’s activities are based on four pillars:

  1. HTA and economic evaluation
    1. design, conduct and analysis of full economic evaluations
    2. design, conduct and analysis of partial economic evaluations
    3. decision analytic modeling
    4. budget impact analysis
    5. discrete choice experiments (including willingness to pay)
  2. Methodological research
    1. New methods in health technology assessment
    2. Quality of life
    3. Technology-specific methodologies (i.e. differences between drugs and medical devices)
    4. Early HTA
    5. Real-world evidence
    6. Effects of the learning curve in medical devices
    7. Value-based decision-making models
  3. Support to Italian and International policymakers
    1. Analysis of public expenditure and consumption data
    2. Mapping and comparison of governance systems and methods for HTA
    3. Integration of National and European-level assessments
  4. Continuity between advancements in knowledge, dissemination and education
    1. Publishing our methodological and applies research in top peer-reviewed international journals
    2. Impact research: publishing and communicating our results to relevant stakeholders
    3. Workshops, roundtables and events dedicated to hot-topics
    4. Integration between methodological research, applied research and executive education

 Ongoing projects (examples)

  • Supporting the Italian Ministry of Health in various projects, including:
    • the design of the HTA program for medical devices
    • analyzing expenditure and consumption of medical devices
  • Economic evaluations on drugs and medical devices:
    • Cost-effectiveness / cost-utility analyses
    • Budget impact analyses
    • Partial economic evaluations, including: cost of illness, cost-consequences analyses, etc.
  • Reviews and Systematic reviews
    • Nutrition
    • Role of real world evidence
    • Coding and reporting applied to medical technologies
  • Methodological research
    • Inclusion of learning curve effects on economic evaluations of medical devices
    • Patterns of cross-national integration of HTA at the European level
    • Early HTA
  • European Projects
    • COMED (Pushing the boundaries of cost and outcome analysis of medical technologies)