Health Outcomes Research Unit

In Chapter 8, professor J.L. Pinto Prades of Pompeu Fabra University and X. Badla Llach of the Health Outcomes Research Unit at Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital take a look at the potential contribution of economic evaluation to the regulation and control of public spending on pharmaceuticals. The authors focus on observing how economic evaluation can be used in pharmaceutical policy. To this end, they distinguish and analyse the potential this instrument has in six distinct areas the approval of pharmaceuticals by health... 

X. Bad i a Llach Consultant, Clinical Epidemiology and Public Health Department, Health Outcomes Research Unit, Sant Pau Hospital, Barcelona... 

In the recently released book on worldwide compliance issues (Adherence to Long-term Therapies, Evidence for Action),7 published by the World Health Organization, researchers indicate that the problem of noncompliance is worse in countries in the developing world than in countries in the industrialized world. Many parts of the United States have similar morbidity and mortality rates as countries in the Third World.8 Specific disease states may have significant additional noncompliance ramifications due to the development of drug-resistant strains of bacteria.9 Many times what is necessary is referral to specific clinicians for individualized treatment and monitoring to enhance compliance. The case histories provided in this text will allow you to follow what others have done in similar situations to optimally help patients succeed in improving compliance rates and subsequent positive health outcomes. 

Amler RW, Lybarger JA Research program for neurotoxic disorders and other adverse health outcomes at hazardous chemical sites in the United States of America. Environ Res 61 279-284,1993... 

One potential difficulty of cost-benefit analysis is that it requires researchers to express an intervention s costs and outcomes in the same units. Thus, monetary values must be associated with years of life lost and morbidity due to disease and with years of life gained and morbidity avoided due to intervention. Expressing costs in this way is obviously difficult in health care analyses. Outcomes (treatment benefits) may be difficult to measure in units of currency. Translating disease and treatment outcomes into monetary measures may be more difficult than translating them into clinical outcome measures, such as years of life saved or years of life saved adjusted for quality. 

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