Introduction to Health Economics and Outcomes Research

This course is designed to teach clinicians and new researchers how to incorporate health economics into study design and data analysis. Participants will first review the basic principles and concepts of health economic evaluations, then discuss how to collect and calculate the costs of different alternatives, determine the economic impact of clinical outcomes, and how to identify, track, and assign costs to different types of healthcare resources used. Different health economic models and techniques will be demonstrated including cost-minimization, cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, cost-utility, and budget impact analysis. Decision analysis, sensitivity analysis, and discounting will all be demonstrated and practiced. This course is suitable for those with little or no experience with health economics.