Original Title: Impacto de la evaluación económica de tecnologías sanitarias en las decisiones sanitarias: encuesta a decisores

Authors' objectives: To evaluate the incentives, barriers and grade of use of economic evaluation of health care decision-makers of macro, meso and micromanagement.

Authors' results and conclusions: RESULTS: The sample is composed by 202 answers of 17 CCAA from the different management levels studied: macro, meso and micro. The answer rate is low (12.3%). Almost the 63% of the sample has taken part in health technology assessment; the 55% has participated in an economic evaluation. The 90% of the sample is aware of the existence of these economic studies and the 80% has found them useful, classifying this utility as high-moderate. Approximately the 70% of the sample agree with the existence of administrative barriers related to budget inflexibility. Methodological barriers are more controversial, specially the complexity of the economic evaluations and the excessive number of hypothesis. Regarding barriers in practice implementation, the necessity of economic evaluation of habitual clinical problems and financing these studies with public funds are the barriers with the major agreement. There is no agreement about private financing. Results obtained in incentives to progress in the use of EE coincide with the barriers ones. Flexible budgets, standardized methodology and a clear economic results presentation and better formation in health economics for health care decision-makers are the items with major agreement of the sample. Regarding group comparison, decision-makers of higher levels, macro and meso, are aware of efficiency criteria, have better training and knowledge in Health Economics, therefore, they participate in EE more than micro decision-makers. Likewise, pharmacists seem to be better prepared in health economics and know the methodological limits of EE. CONCLUSIONS: 1. Administrative, methodological and practice barriers are strongly present in Spanish health care panorama. 2. Due to the reduced answer rate obtained, it is not possible to determine whether an increase of interest of health care decision-makers has taken place. The low answer rate could show the lack of interest of professionals in economic evaluation. 3. A macro decision-makers’ major implication, adequate incentives for professionals, a wider training in health economics and a better dissemination of economic studies are the most important ways to make progress. 4. For further studies it is recommended to focus in the study of barriers and incentives, and to look for collaboration channels between centres and institutions implying decision-makers in order to increase their participation.

Authors' methods: Exploratory, transversal and descriptive study carried out with information collected through a survey sent to different types of health care decision-makers, politicians, managers, general practitioners, specialists and hospital pharmacists. The questionnaire was based on previous national and international experiences. Likewise, address list were drawn up including all the studied spheres. Electronic and postal media were used for the sending, a post office box was rent to receive the answers. A database was created in order to facilitate the ulterior statistic analysis.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2010

URL for published report: https://sescs.es/impacto-de-la-evaluacion-economica-de-tecnologias-sanitarias-en-las-decisiones-sanitarias/

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Full HTA

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Canary Health Service

Contact Address: Dirección del Servicio. Servicio Canario de la Salud, Camino Candelaria 44, 1ª planta, 38109 El Rosario, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Contact Name: sescs@sescs.es

Contact Email: sescs@sescs.es