Enhancing value of information analyses.

Area of Science:

• Health economics
• Decision analysis
• Health policy

Background:

• Value of Information (VOI) analysis quantifies benefits of additional information for health economic decisions.
• Current VOI methods often combine costs and effects, losing crucial separate details.
• Decision-makers require distinct information on costs and effects for optimal policy selection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the feasibility and recommendation of presenting VOI outcomes by underlying costs and effects.
• Introduce the concept of Attributable VOI (AVOI) for separate cost and effect reporting.
• Enhance decision-making clarity in health economic evaluations.

Main Methods:

• Quantifying benefits of additional health economic information using VOI analysis.
• Introducing Attributable VOI (AVOI) to present expected changes in costs and effects separately.
• Illustrating AVOI calculation and application through examples.

Main Results:

• AVOI provides insight into expected costs and effects from further research to reduce uncertainty.
• AVOI clarifies the likelihood of policy changes resulting from additional research.
• Examples demonstrate the benefits and calculation of the AVOI approach.

Conclusions:

• Attributable VOI (AVOI) analyses enhance and clarify decision-making in health economics.
• AVOI results are straightforward to obtain with minimal computational effort.
• The use of AVOI is recommended for all future VOI analyses.