Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

The viewpoint adopted in an economic evaluation that determines which categories of cost and outcome are included, such as payer, patient, or societal.

The increase in quality-adjusted life years attributable to an intervention, the difference between the QALYs expected under it and its comparator.

A quality-adjusted life year combines time lived with preference-based health-state values so that one year at utility 1 represents one QALY, while periods in poorer health contribute proportionately less—or negatively where the applicable value set permits states valued below dead.

A reference case is a documented set of preferred methodological choices that an institution asks analysts to follow so economic evaluations are transparent, consistent and comparable for a defined decision context.

An adjustment to a standard cost-effectiveness threshold permitting a higher accepted cost per QALY for treatments addressing more severe conditions.

An analytic viewpoint including all costs and outcomes regardless of who bears them, including productivity losses and informal carer time.

The treatment widely accepted by clinical practice as the appropriate baseline for a given condition, commonly used as the comparator in an economic evaluation.

A situation where one intervention is unambiguously better than another because it is both less costly and more effective.