[Guidelines for health-economic evaluations in Austria].

BACKGROUND

The evaluative health economics is a recent field of research in health economics. Cost-effectiveness decisions play an increasing role, particularly for policy-makers to find systematic decisions under uncertainty. The task is all the more important as the use of innovative health technologies for diagnosis, prevention and treatment is rapidly expanding and thus leads to financial restrictions in health care. Hence, decision making has to be supported by systematically implementing analytical tools.

METHODS

When it comes to interpret the results of health-economic evaluations in a valid way it is necessary that state-of-the-art methodology is carried out in a transparent way. It is in this vein that guidelines were developed for Austria. On the one hand, they should set standards but, on the other hand, they should not restrict methodical progress guided by freedom of scientific research in health economics.

CONCLUSIONS

Setting guidelines of health-economic evaluations is an important breakthrough in Austria.