Are QALYs an appropriate measure for valuing morbidity in acute diseases?
- 1 March 2000
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Health Economics
- Vol. 9 (2) , 177-180
Abstract
In this paper, we examine the problems associated with using quality adjusted life years (QALYs) as the measure of effectiveness to evaluate interventions for acute conditions. We illustrate the way in which using commonly accepted benchmarks for costs per QALY, in order to adopt interventions for acute conditions, might result in decisions that are not consistent with maximizing net societal benefit. We suggest that an alternate methodology, such as willingness to pay, may be more appropriate to make allocation decisions for acute conditions.Keywords
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