Dictionary

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AssentConceptChild Agreement, Minor Agreement

Assent is a child's affirmative agreement to join research, such as a paediatric trial supplying HTA evidence, given alongside parental permission.

AssessmentConceptTechnical Evaluation, Evidence Evaluation

Assessment in HTA is the evidence-review step before appraisal: analysts critically evaluate a technology's clinical and cost-effectiveness evidence.

Assessment ElementTermAssessment Domain, Assessment Component

A specific, defined component of an assessment framework, such as clinical effectiveness or budget impact, evaluated separately before synthesis.

Asset EfficiencyTermAsset Utilisation, Capital Efficiency

A measure of how effectively an organisation uses its physical and financial assets, such as equipment, to generate patient care activity.

Asset SaleTermDistress Sale, Property Sale

The sale of household property to cover healthcare costs, a coping strategy used when other financial resources are insufficient.

Assignment of BenefitsTermAOB, Benefits Assignment

An arrangement in which a patient authorises their insurer to pay a provider directly for covered services, rather than reimbursing the patient.

Assistive Technology CoverageConceptAT Coverage, Assistive Device Access

Assistive technology coverage is how far people needing assistive products, such as wheelchairs or hearing aids, have them, and how payers fund them.

Assumption StructureConceptStructural Assumptions, Modelling Assumptions

Assumption structure is the full set of simplifying assumptions in a health economic model's design, such as its health states, events and extrapolation.

Astana DeclarationTermDeclaration of Astana, Astana 2018

A 2018 international declaration reaffirming and updating the Alma-Ata Declaration's primary healthcare principles for achieving universal health coverage.

Asymptotic NormalityConceptLarge-Sample Normality, Asymptotic Gaussianity

Asymptotic normality means an estimator's sampling distribution is approximately normal in large samples, the basis of Wald confidence intervals.

Atkinson IndexConceptAtkinson Inequality Index, Atkinson Measure

The Atkinson index measures inequality in health or income using a social welfare function with an explicit inequality aversion parameter, epsilon.

Atrial FibrillationTermAF, AFib

A common cardiac arrhythmia with rapid, irregular beating of the heart's upper chambers, carrying a substantially elevated stroke risk if untreated.

Attachment PointConceptRetention Level, Stop-Loss Threshold

An attachment point is the claims level at which stop-loss insurance or health reinsurance starts to pay, per person (specific) or per group (aggregate).

Attack RateConceptIncidence Proportion, Outbreak Incidence

Attack rate is the proportion of an at-risk population that develops the disease during an outbreak or other defined period: a risk, not a true rate.

Attack Rate RatioTermAttack Rate Comparison, Relative Attack Rate

A measure comparing the attack rate of a disease between two groups within an outbreak, such as those exposed and unexposed to a source.

Attributable Cost EstimationConceptAttributable Costing, Disease-Attributable Cost

Attributable cost estimation measures the extra healthcare cost a disease or risk factor causes, against what the same patients would cost without it.

Attributable FractionConceptAttributable Proportion

The attributable fraction is the share of cases, in the exposed or a whole population, that would not occur without an exposure, used to apportion burden.

Attributable RiskConceptExcess Risk, Exposure-Related Risk

Attributable risk is the risk in exposed minus unexposed people: the excess attributed to exposure, which health economic models turn into costs and QALYs.

AttributeTermCharacteristic, Product Feature

A characteristic of a good or service that is varied systematically across profiles in a choice experiment, such as price or waiting time.

Attribute DefinitionTermEntity Attribute, DES Attribute

The specification of the characteristics assigned to each entity within a discrete event simulation, such as a patient's age or diagnosis.

Attributed PatientTermAttributed Member, Assigned Patient

A patient formally assigned to a specific provider for measuring cost and quality performance under a value-based payment arrangement.

AttributionConceptPatient Assignment, Provider Assignment

Attribution is the assignment of patients to a provider so that their spending and quality of care count towards its performance in value-based payment.

AttritionConceptParticipant Dropout, Sample Loss

Attrition is the loss of participants from a trial or cohort study before follow-up ends, leaving outcome, cost and QALY data incomplete and open to bias.

Attrition RateTermDevelopment Failure Rate, Candidate Failure Rate

The proportion of drug candidates that fail to progress through each stage of development, from discovery through trials to approval.

Auction TheoryConceptHealthcare Auction Design, Procurement Auctions

Auction theory in health economics studies how bidding rules in tenders set the price and supply of medicines, vaccines and medical equipment.

Audit and FeedbackConceptA&F, Provider Data Feedback

Audit and feedback (A&F) is a quality improvement strategy that measures clinicians' practice against a target and returns the results to prompt change.

Audit CriterionTermAudit Standard, Audit Measure

A specific, measurable standard used to assess whether clinical practice conforms to an established guideline or expected performance level.

Audit RecoveryTermPayment Recovery, Recovery Audit

The process of a payer identifying and recovering improper payments previously made to a provider, typically following an audit.

Authorized GenericTermAG

A generic version of a brand-name drug produced or licensed by the original manufacturer, marketed without a brand name but chemically identical.

Automatic SubstitutionConceptAuto-Substitution, Mandatory Substitution

Automatic substitution is pharmacy dispensing of a lower-cost equivalent generic or biosimilar for a prescribed brand without consulting the prescriber.

AutonomyConceptPatient Autonomy

Autonomy is the ethical principle that people able to decide may make informed, voluntary choices about their own care, weighed in HTA ethical analysis.

Autoregressive CorrelationConceptAR Correlation Structure, Autoregressive Structure

Autoregressive correlation is a structure for repeated measures in which correlation falls by a constant factor with each time step between measurements.

Availability HeuristicTermAvailability Bias, Ease-of-Recall Heuristic

A cognitive heuristic in which perceived probability is based on how easily examples come to mind rather than actual frequency.

Availability of HealthcareTermService Availability, Supply Adequacy

One of the five classical access dimensions, referring to the adequacy of healthcare provider and service supply relative to population need.

Available Case AnalysisConceptACA, Complete-Pairs Analysis

Available case analysis is a missing data method estimating each quantity from everyone with data for it, so costs and QALYs may use different patients.

Average CostConceptCost per Unit, Mean Cost, Per Patient Cost, Cost per Patient, Per-Case Cost

Average cost is total cost divided by the number of units produced, such as patients treated or bed days, giving the cost per unit of a health service.

Average Cost EstimationTermMean Cost Estimation, Average Costing

The process of estimating cost per unit of service by dividing total observed cost by units delivered, without separating fixed and variable components.

Average Cost-Effectiveness RatioConceptAverage Cost-Effectiveness, ACER

The average cost-effectiveness ratio (ACER) is an option's cost per unit of health effect, in total or against doing nothing, without comparing options.

Average Length of StayConceptALOS, Mean Length of Stay

Average length of stay (ALOS) is the mean number of days inpatients spend in hospital: total bed-days divided by discharges over the same period.

Average Manufacturer PriceConceptAMP, Manufacturer Average Price

Average Manufacturer Price (AMP) is the average price paid to a manufacturer for a drug supplied to US retail pharmacies, the basis of Medicaid rebates.

Average Sales PriceConceptMedicare Net Price, ASP Benchmark

Average sales price (ASP) is a manufacturer's average US price for a drug in a quarter, net of most discounts and rebates; it sets Medicare Part B payment.

Average Treatment EffectConceptATE, Population Average Effect

The average treatment effect (ATE) is the mean change in costs or health outcomes if a whole population received a treatment rather than its comparator.

Avoidable CostConceptEscapable Cost

Avoidable cost is the cost a budget holder would no longer pay if a health service stopped or a disease was prevented, within a stated time period.

Avoidable Cost EstimationTermAvoidable Costing, Avoidable-Cost Analysis

The process of identifying and quantifying the portion of cost that could be eliminated if a specific activity or inefficiency were removed.

AWMSGTermAll Wales Medicines Strategy Group

The All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, advising the Welsh government on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly licensed medicines for NHS Wales.