Economic evaluation of health technology in the Indian context - A scoping review protocol
Creators: name: Gandhi, Dorcas
name: A, DILESH
name: Samuel, Prasanna
name: Guttikonda, Apoorva
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
subject: Life Sciences
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Health economics
subject: health technology assessment

description: Recent scientific advancements have led to the use of many technologies to improve health and well-being[1]. “Technology” may be defined as the “dynamic clustering of techniques, methods, skills and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the achievement of outcomes that deliver desired benefits for consumers”[2]. The World Health Organization defines Health Technology (HT) as the “application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, drugs, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of life”[3]. It comprises a vast array of health services spanning from simple charting to advanced decision support and integration with medical technology. These mainly intend to provide numerous opportunities for transforming healthcare by reducing human error, improving clinical outcomes, facilitating care coordination, improving practice efficiencies, and tracking data over time. This has contributed to better health indicators for numerous countries across the globe [4]. Technologies can often lead to increase in healthcare costs with 50-70% increase attributed to newer technologies in health care. In countries like India where the government spending on health is only ~1.15% GDP[5], people pay out-of-pocket for their healthcare utilization.. This could lead to technologies that are not affordable to potential patient groups. Rising health expenditures lead to the question of value for the money spent. Economic evaluations (EE) provide a framework to calibrate the potential benefits in health outcomes (value) with associated costs.[6] In developed countries, economic evaluations that compare health technologies in terms of their costs and its impact on quality of life aid in decision making on investments in these technology However, this area is emergent in India, somewhat complex, fragmented, and challenging,[7] and will benefit from a systematic study of current practice of economic evaluations of health technologies in Indian context. Therefore, we propose to conduct a scoping review of economic evaluations conducted in India to describe their application and utility. Towards this goal, our review will aim to (1) identify the existing studies in terms of target populations, technologies, and outcomes; (2) describe the type of analyses; and (3) describe the variety of cost and outcome metrics used to generate evidence. This will help in understanding the existing evidence base, broader disease or application areas in which this approach is used, technologies evaluated, and allow to highlight any major challenges/limitations reported for studies in India. More specifically, we will map areas in which economic evaluations was used, and understand the type of information, criteria, methods, and evidence that feature in them.