Health Economic Decision Tree Models of Diagnostics for Dummies: A Pictorial Primer

Health economics is a discipline of economics applied to health care. One method used in health economics is decision tree modelling, which extrapolates the cost and effectiveness of competing interventions over time. Such decision tree models are the basis of reimbursement decisions in countries using health technology assessment for decision making. In many instances, these competing interventions are diagnostic technologies. Despite a wealth of excellent resources describing the decision analysis of diagnostics, two critical errors persist: not including diagnostic test accuracy in the structure of decision trees and treating sequential diagnostics as independent. These errors have consequences for the accuracy of model results, and thereby impact on decision making. This paper sets out to overcome these errors using color to link fundamental epidemiological calculations to decision tree models in a visually and intuitively appealing pictorial format. The paper is a must-read for modelers developing decision trees in the area of diagnostics for the first time and decision makers reviewing diagnostic reimbursement models.