Accelerating insight: the role of artificial intelligence in health economic analysis for ophthalmology

Traditional health economic analysis is essential for guiding healthcare decision-making but is hindered by slow, resource-intensive processes. This review examines how recent advancements in artificial intelligence can automate and accelerate the core components of health economic analysis, from evidence generation to economic modeling and regulatory submissions, and explores the implications of this transformation for ophthalmology.

Recent proof-of-concept studies demonstrate that artificial intelligence can automate systematic literature reviews with high accuracy, significantly reducing screening times while matching or exceeding the sensitivity of human reviewers. In economic modeling, artificial intelligence systems can now autonomously write and adapt complex simulation code from textual descriptions, replicating the results of published models with near-perfect fidelity. Furthermore, to ensure rigor, new reporting guidelines like ELEVATE-GenAI are emerging alongside proactive regulatory position statements from health technology assessment agencies like NICE. While direct applications in ophthalmology remain in their early stages, these combined developments signal a transformative potential to accelerate the cost-effectiveness assessment of emerging sight-saving technologies.

Artificial intelligence-driven automation represents a paradigm shift in health economic analysis, enabling evaluations that once took months to be completed in a fraction of the time. This capability is particularly critical for ophthalmology's rapidly evolving technological landscape, enabling dynamic assessment of innovations from artificial intelligence-powered diagnostics and robotic surgical systems to novel gene therapies and advanced pharmaceuticals. Although challenges remain regarding analytical validity, bias amplification, and regulatory acceptance, the integration of artificial intelligence promises to accelerate evidence-based adoption of sight-saving technologies through responsive, context-specific economic insights.