Economic Evaluation Task

Question 1

Justify why you believe that an economic evaluation is needed, including any additional information you might need to support your argument.

 

Economic evaluation is needed before Department of Health funds “Happy Kids”. It is important to ensure that the program represents “value for money” hence economic evaluation is needed. It is extremely important to understand the relationship between outcome and costs; which justifies the importance of economic evaluation.

Economic evaluation is a “systematic” process of analyzing costs and benefits of a proposal. It enables to quantify the benefits and offers various options to choose from. This evaluation further offers different options to decision makers hence it helps in taking effective decisions. Lastly this evaluation helps in identifying stakeholders that will be affected by the program and hence the effect can be controlled.

Overall economic evaluation helps in understanding the benefits and costs at all levels which helps in taking effective decisions hence features of economic evaluation is required at this stage. With economic evaluation by systematically analyzing all costs and benefits, the best option can be selected that will assist in meeting objectives of the program. It helps in identifying if benefits will exceed costs, then it will also help in selecting the best possible option that offers maximum benefit. It also shows the distribution of costs and benefits among different stakeholders involved. Although the results of this evaluation will not be the only factor but they will help decision makers in taking informed decisions (Claxton, Paulden, Gravelle, Brouwer, & Culyer, 2011). All of the reasons mentioned above justify the need for economic evaluation for “Happy Kids”.

Question 2

Form a well-defined study question to help guide your economic evaluation? Make sure you include all the elements of a good study question, including how health outcomes will be measured.

 

The study question is: “What are the benefits and health outcomes of launching “Happy Kids” (a program for prevention of anxiety disorder) among young children?”

Question 3

What type of economic evaluation do you think will be the most appropriate for answering your study question? Justify why you have chosen this method for your economic evaluation.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) will be effective for economic evaluation in estimating feasibility of “Happy Kids”. It is one of the most comprehensive and widely used type of economic evaluation. The reason for selecting this type is that it quantifies in money terms all the costs and benefits associated with the project hence it will be effective in economic evaluation of “Happy Kids”. Here outcomes will actually be transformed in dollar terms and hence evaluation process is evaluated. It enables comparison and hence helps in taking effective decision. In case of CBA, only major costs and benefits are evaluated rather than all the costs (Brent, 2014).

In CBA costs and benefits can be valued by classifying them into three categories. In first category all the costs and benefits that can be identified are included for example cost of staff. In second category all the effects that can be identified but cannot be easily valued are included. In last category all the impacts which cannot be quantified are included for example improve self-esteem.

Various tools are present for effective valuation and are used when needed depending on importance of any particular issue. Mostly among costs; capital cost and operating costs are included. Capital costs are cost of building, equipment and land whereas operating costs include cost of running the business. On the benefit side both revenue (from selling service) and benefit to stakeholders should be included.  In some cases cost savings are also included among the benefits.

Overall Cost benefit analysis (CBA) is selected for economic evaluation of “Happy Kids” because here we can quantify in money terms all the costs and benefits associated with the project hence it will be effective in economic evaluation of “Happy Kids”. In costs all the costs mentioned above like capital and operating costs will be included. Similarly among benefits; revenue, benefits to stakeholders and cost savings will be included (Brent, 2014).

Question 4

            Describe the resources that you will collect under the following categories:

1. Direct health care:

Under direct healthcare various resources will be collected including equipment for medication. Similarly doctors and nurses will also be required as they are an important resource. In the same way all the machinery required for diagnosis will also be part of it.  Direct health care costs will include the costs of procedure, therapies and medications.

2. Direct non-health care:

Direct non-health care will include resources that are directly related with health care but are non-health care. Different resources are required among direct non-health care including resources like support staff. In the same way some machineries that are not directly required for dealing with anxiety will also be part of direct non-health care.

3. Indirect:

Indirect resources include all the resources that don’t have direct impact on the outcome. These resources will include management and marketing staff for example all the activities to increase awareness about the program. The resources will include all the material required for campaign and other support material.

4. Intangible

Intangible resources include all the resources that cannot be touched. Under intangible positive image will be evaluated. The perception in the minds of target market will be evaluated. In the same way overall awareness about the program is important to ensure that outcome is reached hence this resource will also be collected.

Question 5

Outline the information and data sources that you would use for collecting the resource and cost information for your economic evaluation.

 

In order to collect all the required information about resources and cost, both secondary and primary sources of information will be used. In secondary sources, already existing information will be used to understand about the resources mentioned above. Once secondary sources are used for collecting information than primary sources will also be used. Primary information will be gathered to get up to date information which is essential for accurate economic evaluation.

While secondary sources give already existing information primary source be used to gather first-hand information. Secondary sources include data sources like internet, books, newspapers, and magazines and already published information. In primary sources information will be gathered through questionnaire and interviews. Some other ways of collecting primary information are focus groups and observation. All of these ways will be used to gather all the required information. The information will be collected about direct health care, direct non health care, indirect and intangible.

As mentioned above cost will include both capital and operating costs, those will be gathered through secondary and primary sources of information. For capital cost secondary sources will be used and for operating cost primary data source will be used. On the revenue side information will be gathered about revenue and benefits to stakeholders. A sample preliminary study will be conducted to understand and identify costs and revenues associated with the project. Overall these sources will give in depth information required for estimation for economic evaluation. Together these sources will give all the information that is essential for cost and benefit estimation for “Happy Kids”. In the start secondary sources will be used for collecting information than primary sources will also be used to gather other information. The information will be collected about direct health care, direct non health care, indirect and intangible.

Question 6:

Explain how you will value each of your resource inputs in your economic evaluation.

Resources are not unlimited hence managing them is important, which will be done by utilizing them in best possible way. The resources required for “Happy Kids” as mentioned above are many and all of them must be utilized in most effective way.

They should be valued, it is important to ensure that the benefit exceeds the cost otherwise the program will not be effective.  The resources required for intervention as mentioned above are categorized among different categories including direct health care cost, direct non health care, indirect and intangible. All of these resources will be valued in economic evaluation as only then fair evaluation will be done to generate required results.    All the costs will be valued, they will be transformed in monetary terms to ensure that the monetary benefit is more than the monetary costs associated with the program. The total economic value will be determined by estimating the costs and benefits of the intervention program.  Each resource will be valued, by    gathering sufficient information from the data sources outlined above.   Once data sources provide information then the resources will be valued to see the impact, all tangible and intangible resources will be considered as it will enable us to generate fair results and will lead to accurate economic evaluation which is required for taking good decisions.

Question 7:

Explain and justify how you will collect and value the health outcomes you have chosen for your economic evaluation.

The health outcomes will be valued as it is important to ensure that those outcomes are achieved through the program. There are two outcomes of this intervention categorized as the health benefits and other benefits. Following steps will be used to value health outcomes of the intervention. In the first step, services that are already existing will be identified. Then provison level will be assessed in order to compare it with the baseline level. It will help in identifying the change or improvement in overall system. Then people in the society will be identified who will benefit from this “Happy Kids” intervention. Economic valuation method will be selected and market size will be quantifies finally total economic value of the outcome will be available that will be used to estimate the benefit. In the end costs and benefits will be compared which will assist in taking informed decisions.

Overall

economic evaluation was carried out before Department of Health funds “Happy Kids”. It was important to ensure that the program represents “value for money” hence economic evaluation was needed the results showed that “Happy Kids” should be launched as the cases of anxiety among young kids are increasingly reported hence reducing them is an important task which can be done by this intervention program. It is extremely important to understand the relationship between outcome and costs; which justified the importance of this economic evaluation.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) was used as an effective type of economic evaluation in estimating feasibility of “Happy Kids”. It is one of the most comprehensive and widely used type of economic evaluation. The reason for selecting this type was that it quantified in money terms all the costs and benefits associated with the project hence it was effective in economic evaluation of “Happy Kids”.

In order to collect all the required information about resources and cost, both secondary and primary sources of information were used. In secondary sources, already existing information was used to understand about the resources mentioned above. Since resources are not unlimited hence managing them was important, which was done by utilizing them in best possible way. The health outcomes were also valued as it was important to ensure that those outcomes are achieved through the program. There are two outcomes of this intervention categorized as the health benefits and other benefits. All of the results showed that “Happy kids” should be launched.

References

Brent, R. J. (2014). Cost–benefit analysis and health care evaluations. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Claxton, K., Paulden, M., Gravelle, H., Brouwer, W., & Culyer, A. J. (2011). Discounting and decision making in the economic evaluation of health‐care technologies. Health economics, 20(1), 2-15.

Kuklinski, M. R., Fagan, A. A., Hawkins, J. D., Briney, J. S., & Catalano, R. F. (2015). Benefit–cost analysis of a randomized evaluation of Communities That Care: monetizing intervention effects on the initiation of delinquency and substance use through grade 12. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 1-28.

Marée, M., & Mertens, S. (2012). The limits of economic value in measuring performance of social innovation. Social innovation: Blurring boundaries to reconfigure markets, 114-138.

Raghavan, R. (2012). The role of economic evaluation in dissemination and implementation research. Dissemination and implementation research in health: Translating science to practice, 94-113.