Ordering of programmes according to incremental cost-benefit ratios

Therefore, the projects selected would depend on the budget. For example  

Along the same lines, a proposal has been made for the UK that would divide medicines into four groups The A list would contain a selection of effective medicines, no more than 200-300, but sufficiently comprehensive to allow treatment of all major conditions, and free of charge to all. B list medicines are either no more effective than A list medicines, or offer minor benefits at a disproportionate cost. These might require a low co-payment, perhaps related to the cost of the prescription, to a preset maximum. A maximum 

To sum up, the above arguments indicate that it is advisable to establish drag subsidies in such a way that they provide most benefit to  

By applying the above decision tree we obtain four outcomes  

In order to associate a number to represent the utility of these four outcomes we have to choose between several types of economic evaluations, basically between cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis and cost-benefit analysis. The first of these is ruled out because it measures the health outcome in natural units. Given that the side effects of drags are of a varied nature, we need to be able to aggregate the different seriousness of these side effects in order to obtain a single utility, at least for the NSEA event. Furthermore, this utility must be comparable with that of, for example, the SER event. This is not possible with cost-effectivity. If we chose cost-utility, the utility associated with each event would be measured in QALYs gained or lost in each option. As QALYs are a universal measure of health benefit, cost-utility analysis could be appropriate for this type of decision. Lastly, cost-benefit analysis would also be appropriate, as it measures the utilities associated with each outcome in monetary terms, which reflect the willingness to pay for one of the outcomes in terms of safety and effectiveness. 

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Table 8.3 Ordering of programmes according to incremental cost-benefit ratios...

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