Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2019Modelling Hospital Operations from Paper Registry Data
This article, published in BMJ Global Health, aims to evaluate operations management techniques, which are …
This article, published in BMJ Global Health, aims to evaluate operations management techniques, which are underutilized in the Ethiopian health system. Previous research has outlined the limitations of paper-based patient records, but few studies have examined their potential utility for improving management of hospital operations. The authors use data collected from paper registries in an Ethiopian obstetrics ward at Addis Ababa’s Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia’s largest university hospital, to model the ward’s operations. The…
Operations Research | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2018HTA and MCDA Solely or Combined? The Case of Priority-Setting in Colombia
Given the limited resources available worldwide, healthcare systems face problems of justice and efficiency related …
Given the limited resources available worldwide, healthcare systems face problems of justice and efficiency related to setting priorities. Two methods, Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) have emerged as tools to assist in informed decision-making, but both have advantages and disadvantages. Colombia established a Health Technology Assessment Institute in 2012. The authors discuss challenges faced by the Colombian health system, characteristics of HTA in Colombia and the potential benefits and drawbacks of…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Latin America & Caribbean -
ArticlePublication 2018Resource Allocation in Decision Support Frameworks
Multi-criteria decision-making frameworks expand on typical decision analyses (cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit) by explicitly incorporating value …
Multi-criteria decision-making frameworks expand on typical decision analyses (cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit) by explicitly incorporating value tradeoffs from decision makers and summarizing the performance of investment options. This is done across all chosen dimensions of value, based on the weights provided by the decision makers, but comes at a cost. Currently there is no widely accepted method to suggest how to determine a budget constraint using multi-attribute models or to measure willingness to pay for incremental…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health/Medicine | Global -
ReviewPublication 2018Incorporating MCDA into HTA: A Focus on Lower Income Settings
The authors present key challenges, both methodological and practical against using multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) …
The authors present key challenges, both methodological and practical against using multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in health technology assessment (HTA) as well as solutions to these challenges. They showcase lessons learned from previous applications of MCDS to HTA, including design, criteria of models, approaches for estimating costs and challenges with various approaches. By showing efforts that have succeeded in overcoming these challenges in lower and middle income-countries, they show how MCDA has the potential to…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Global -
ReviewPublication 2018Reflective Multicriteria for Healthcare Decision-Making? The EVIDEM Journey
The authors discuss a framework for mulicriteria decision making for healthcare decision making that was …
The authors discuss a framework for mulicriteria decision making for healthcare decision making that was created and used by the EVIDEM Collaboration between 2006 and 2017. This framework originally incorporated healthcare ethics, evidenced-based medicine, health economics, health technology assessment and multicriteria approaches to decision making. The authors present this modified 10th edition framework, which builds on these by enhancing the following 4 areas: universal healthcare, values and ethics, evidence-based interventions, and process transformation. The framework…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Global -
ArticlePublication 2018Trading Bankruptcy for Health: A Discrete-Choice Experiment
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to …
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to improved financial risk protection in the general United States population. Using a discrete-choice experiment, it finds that 31.3% of the population values cure at all costs, and 8.5% of the population use financial solvency to dominate medical decision making. This study shares insight to the US population values and trade-offs between health outcomes and financial health, and highlights the difficult…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | Health Outcomes | Culture/Society | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | North America -
ArticleWeb Portal 2017PLoS Collection: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Sexually Transmitted Infections
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than one million new sexually transmitted …
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than one million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur each day, incurring a very substantial burden of morbidity, mortality and additional infections. The pathogens responsible include bacteria, parasites and viruses, and intensive research is needed to address the substantial barriers to diagnosis and treatment of STIs, and the behavioral challenges of prevention. This PLOS collection, published in collaboration with WHO, focuses on global policy and systems…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Costing Methods | Mathematical Models | Dynamic Transmission | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2017Costs of Facility-Based HIV Testing in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Providing HIV testing at health facilities remains the most common approach to ensuring access to …
Providing HIV testing at health facilities remains the most common approach to ensuring access to HIV treatment and prevention services for the millions of undiagnosed HIV-infected individuals in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors sought to explore the costs of providing these services across three southern African countries with high HIV burden.Primary costing studies were undertaken in 54 health facilities providing HIV testing services (HTS) in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Routinely collected monitoring and evaluation data for…
Technology Assessment | Health Systems | Costing Methods | Infectious Diseases | Clinical Care | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Getting it Right When Budgets are Tight: Prioritizing Responses to HIV Epidemics
Prioritizing investments across health interventions is complicated by the nonlinear relationship between intervention coverage and …
Prioritizing investments across health interventions is complicated by the nonlinear relationship between intervention coverage and epidemiological outcomes. It can be difficult for countries to know which interventions to prioritize for greatest epidemiological impact, particularly when budgets are uncertain.The authors examined four case studies of HIV epidemics in diverse settings, each with different characteristics. These case studies were based on public data available for Belarus, Peru, Togo, and Myanmar. The Optima HIV model and software package…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Systems | Costing Methods | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific