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Improving cost effectiveness of health services for the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease.
Chief Investigators
Funded by:
NH&MRC (SRDC)
Summary
Cardiovascular diseases are the largest cause of disease burden in terms of premature mortality and morbidity in Australia. A broad range of interventions has been introduced to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases or treat the consequences of existing disease. They include population-wide preventive measures (such as health promotion and tobacco regulation), individually directed preventive therapies (including anti-hypertensive, lipid lowering, smoking cessation and hormone replacement therapies) as well as curative and rehabilitative interventions. Preventive therapies presently cost over $1 billion per annum and are largely responsible for an historic shift in prescribing in Australia from acute illness to prevention. Therefore, it is essential to direct pharmacological prevention for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease towards people for whom cost-effectiveness is maximal and in keeping with cost-effectiveness norms applied elsewhere in medical care. This study will analyse the costs and impact of existing and potential new interventions in coronary heart disease and provide governments and health service providers in Australia with evidence-based information on the relative cost-effectiveness of the major preventive, curative and rehabilitative interventions. In the area of preventive therapies the study will determine for which sub-groups in the population these therapies are cost-effective.
This project is the first in Australia to perform a comparative analysis of a large number of interventions using DALYs, allowing an internally consistent and comparable method of measuring health benefits for each of the interventions. This study is intended as a model project to demonstrate the immediate value of this approach to resource allocation decisions in coronary health. The information value of this study's results will increase as more similar studies are completed in the future providing further points of comparison with the cost-effectiveness of interventions in other areas of health.
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