The preliminary economic evaluation of health technologies for the prioritization of health technology assessments - A discussion

This paper critically evaluates methods for the preliminary economic evalua tion of health technologies and the prioritization of health technology ass essment projects. It reports on the literature, and considers methods curre ntly employed and the purposes of preliminary appraisal. It concludes that a preliminary economic appraisal needs to be applied to the two main stages of the prioritization process; to have transparent criteria; to allow for an appropriate range of potential outcomes; to be practicable, flexible, an d efficient; and to be relevant to the assessment of different research pro jects.