ISPOR First Asia-Pacific Conference: Short Courses

9.00-12.30	Introduction to Pharmacoeconomics Room 401, 4th floor Faculty: Kenneth K.C. Lee PhD, Mphil, Professor and Head, Division of Pharmacy Practice, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong and Yasushi Ohkusa PhD, Associate Professor, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. Course Description: This short course is designed to teach clinicians and new researchers how to incorporate pharmacoeconomics into study design and data analysis. Participants will learn how to collect and calculate the costs of different treatment alternatives, determine the economic impact of clinical outcomes, and how to identify, track and assign costs to different types of health care resources used. The development of economic protocols and data collection sheets will be discussed. Different pharmacoeconomic models and techniques will be demonstrated including cost-minimization, cost-of-illness, cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, and cost-utility analysis. Participants will also learn to compare and evaluate interventions such as drugs, devices and clinical services. This course is suitable for those with little or some experience with pharmacoeconomics. Short course workbooks are available in English and Japanese.
9.00-12.30	Introduction to Quality of Life Assessment Room 402, 4th floor Faculty: Bruce Crawford MA, MPH, Senior Project Director/Manager US Operations, Mapi Values, Boston, MA, USA, Linda Abetz MA, Research Director, Mapi Values, Bollington, UK and Shuzo Nishimura PhD, Professor, Faculty of Economics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Course Description: Definitions and concepts, methodologies, and practical methods for measuring patient reported outcomes will be presented. An emphasis will be placed on health-related quality of life with additional discussion provided on symptom and treatment satisfaction assessment strategies. The value of patient reported outcomes assessment will be discussed. A strategy to aid in selecting appropriate instruments and the translation processes will be presented. Instrument development and validation will be discussed using practical examples and exercises. This course is designed for those with either little or intermediate experience in health-related quality-of-life assessment. Short course workbooks are available in English and Japanese.
9.00-12.30	Decision Analysis Room 403, 4th floor Faculty: Shu Chuen Li PhD, MBA, MSc, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore and Tsunetaro Sakurai MD, Professor and Director of Medical Informatics, Hokkaido University, Medical Hospital, Department of Medical Information, Sappro, Japan Course Description: Decision analysis is a tool that uses an explicit, quantitative structure to describe and analyze complex health care decisions. This course will provide an introduction to the principles and practice of decision analysis. Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to evaluate the appropriateness of decision analysis in different settings, construct simple decision trees, understand the basic mechanics of tree evaluation and sensitivity analysis, and acquire skill in the interpretation of a published decision analysis. Extension of basic techniques, such as cost-effectiveness analysis and the assessment of patient preferences will be briefly discussed. Pen and paper exercises will be used to illustrate these principles. This course is suitable for those with little experience with decision analysis. Short course workbooks are available in English and Japanese.

AFTERNOON COURSES

13.30-17.00	Pharmacoeconomic and Outcomes Modeling Room 401, 4th floor Faculty: William McGhan PharmD, PhD, Professor, University of the Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, USA and Takuro Shimbo MD, General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Course Description: During this health economic and outcomes course, various pharmacoeconomic modeling techniques will be discussed and demonstrated including decision trees, Markov models, and Bayesian analysis. Discounting, sensitivity analysis and statistical advances will be reviewed. This course will describe mechanisms for including comprehensive costs and clinical outcomes as well as patient utilities and quality-of-life parameters. Basic examples and calculations will be used to illustrate these concepts, and more complex examples will be critiqued from the literature, based on retrospective and prospective data. Spreadsheets and software options, including DATA (TreeAge), Crystal Ball (Crystal Ball) and @Risk (Palisade) will be compared. Participants will learn about using modeling techniques to compare and evaluate interventions related to drugs, medical devices and clinical services. This course is suitable for those with little or some experience with pharmacoeconomics.
13.30-17.00	Advanced Quality of Life Assessment room 402, 4th floor Faculty: Linda Abetz MA, Research Director, Mapi Values, Bollington, UK, Bruce Crawford MA, MPH, Senior Project Director/Manager US Operations, Mapi Values, Boston, MA, USA and Isao Kamae MD, DrPH, Professor of Health Informatics and Science, Research Center for Urban Safety and Security, and Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan Course Description: This course will provide an in-depth discussion of PRO implementation, validity testing, analysis and interpretation with examples of each. New methods for development, validation and testing cross-cultural equivalence will be presented (eg, Rasch and structural equation modeling, simultaneous development). There will be a focus on analysis (including new methods), issues of multiplicity, missing data, important differences and interpretation. This course is designed for those with experience in health-related quality-of-life and other patient reported outcomes assessment.
13.30-17.00	Meta-analysis and Systematic Literature Review room 403, 4th floor Faculty: Thomas Einarson PhD, Associate Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;Takashi Fukuda, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacoeconomics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Kiichiro Tsutani, MD, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Pharmacoeconomics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Ataru Igarashi, master course student, Dept. of Pharmacoeconomics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Course Description: Meta-analysis may be defined as the statistical analysis of data from multiple studies for the purpose of synthesizing and summarizing results, as well as for quantitatively evaluating sources of heterogeneity and bias. A systematic literature review often includes meta-analysis and involves an explicit, detailed description of how a review was conducted. This course highlights and expounds upon four key areas: 1) impetus for meta-analysis and systematic reviews, 2) basic steps to perform a quantitative systematic review, 3) statistical methods of combining data, and 4) appraisal and use of meta-analytic reports. The material is motivated via applications in pharmacoeconomics, outcomes research, and clinical studies from the published literature and hypothetical examples. Interactive exercises are part of the course. This course is designed for those with little experience with meta-analysis.