RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Economic evaluation of programs or interventions in the management of rheumatoid arthritis: defining a consensus-based reference case.
JF The Journal of Rheumatology
JO J Rheumatol
FD The Journal of Rheumatology
SP 891
OP 896
VO 30
IS 4
A1 Andreas Maetzel
A1 Peter Tugwell
A1 Maarten Boers
A1 Francis Guillemin
A1 Doug Coyle
A1 Mike Drummond
A1 John B Wong
A1 Sherine E Gabriel
A1 OMERACT 6 Economics Research Group
YR 2003
UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/30/4/891.abstract
AB Improvement in the quality of economic evaluation could be documented as a consequence of international and national standardization efforts. One such effort is the recommendation that all economic evaluations in a given field produce findings in a standard format using a reference case. A reference case-based economic evaluation would adhere to specific settings with regard to outcomes, comparators, modeling techniques, and use of costs to facilitate comparisons among economic evaluations performed with the same objective. In the past, the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) consensus conference has successfully developed widely used, consensus-based outcome criteria for clinical improvement in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Present efforts are being directed at the development of recommendations for the type and format of a reference case economic evaluation for newly developed disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD). This document discusses 13 important elements that experts considered to be relevant for the development of a reference case recommendation for economic evaluations in RA. We provide the rationale for each element and discuss how each element has been addressed in published economic evaluations of DMARD.