W7: DISCRETE CHOICE EXPERIMENTS IN HEALTH POLICY AND DECISION MAKING

DISCUSSION LEADERS: Mandy Ryan MSc, PhD, Professor of Health Economics, Health Economics Research Unit, Aberdeen University, University Medical Building, Aberdeen, UK; Mark Sculpher PhD, Professor of Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, Heslington, York, UK; Lorenzo G Mantovani EconD, MSc, DSc, Head of Research, Center of Pharmacoeconomics, University of Milan,
Milan, Italy

Workshop Purpose: The aim of this workshop is to illustrate discrete choice experiments (DCE) as a technique for evaluating health care technologies from a patient's perspective, and to understand the rationale and implications of using this method in health care decision-making
processes.

Workshop Description: DCE are an attribute-based measure of benefit that are based on two assumptions: firstly, health care interventions, services or policies can be described by their characteristics or attributes and, secondly, an individual's valuation depends on the levels of these characteristics. DCE were introduced into health economics as a technique to go beyond the traditional quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) paradigm. Users were concerned with many aspects of health care beyond health outcomes. Such factors included waiting time, location of treatment, type of care (for example surgical or medical), and staff providing care (consultant or specialist nurse) and were referred to as process attributes. Discrete choice experiments allow investigation of the trade-offs between such process and health outcomes attributes. In this workshop some recent experiences of the use of this technique will be presented and its strengths and limits will be discussed. Participants will be asked to complete and comment on a DCE questionnaire. The key point for the discussion will be the implications of patient-centred care for decision-making agencies such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK.