London Workshop Studies Socio-Economics of Medical Technology
July 20, 2012 – 8:18 amEffectively demonstrating the socio-economic benefits of medical technology is not as simple a task as it may seem. The exercise is subject to a number of challenges that are unique to the medical device industry. To discuss how they might be tackled in light of recent research conducted by the European Health Technology Institute for Socio-Economic Research (EHTI), a course titled Challenges in Demonstrating the Socio-Eoconomic Benefits of Medical Devices is scheduled for 17 September 2012 at the London School of Economics.
A press release published on the Eucomed website cites some of the challenges that device makers may encounter in demonstrating the socio-economic value of their products. They include:
- requests for clinical evidence
- evaluations of device effectiveness partly based on the user’s learning curve
- factoring in benefits related to patient experience that are not captured by the quality-adjusted life year.
In particular, adds EHTI, standard tools are unable to detect the small differences in health states associated with iterative technology improvements or attributes such as increased convenience.
Topics covered in the workshop will include the design of meaningful clinical studies for devices, development of methodologies to measure patient experience and identification of cost offsets from the use of devices.
The workshop is organised through LSE’s research programme with EHTI. Registration opens on 25 July. Further information is available on the EHTI website.
Norbert Sparrow
