NICE...
It's based on the cost of a measure called the "quality-adjusted life year" [QALY]. A QALY scores your health on a scale from zero to one: zero if you're dead and one if you're in perfect health. You find out as a result of a treatment where a patient would move up the scale. If you do a hip replacement, the patient might start at .5 and go up to .7, improving by .2. You can assume patients live for an average of 15 years following hip replacements. And .2 times 15 equals three quality-adjusted life years. If the hip replacement costs 10,000 GBP [about $15,000] to do, it's 10,000 divided by three, which equals 3,333 GBP [about $5,000]. That figure is the cost per QALY.
So, what if you're at 0.05 and go to 0.25. It's the same 0.2 increase, but you're '5 times healthier'. Doesn't that count differently? |
