Re-orientation of the Austrian parent-child preventive care programme. Part XII: Economic evaluation of selected screenings during pregnancy

Research areas: Prevention and screening, Health economics

& Anna Novelli
Duration: August - November 2016
Suggested by: Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and Women 
Publication: HTA-Project report No. 91: https://eprints.aihta.at/1112/

Language: German

Background:
Since 2010, the LBI-HTA developed a comprehensive basis for the “re-orientation of the Austrian parent-child preventive care programme”. Since 2014, a multi-professional task group in the ministry of health has been working on the assessment of international screening-recommendations during pregnancy to develop recommendations for Austria.

The LBI-HTA attended the appraisal process [1] and is actually summarising the results of the task force.

Aim of the project:
In addition to the overview of screening recommendations during pregnancy, an economic evaluation (budget-impact-analysis) of three screenings, which were chosen after consultation with the Ministry of Health, will be conducted. This information is supposed to be used as an additional basis for the decision of the stakeholder-group to potentially adapt the screenings to the parent-child preventive care programme.

Research questions:

1) What are the costs for a one-time TSH-test, screening a defined group for hypothyroidism during pregnancy [2] and which budget-impact can be expected?

2) What are the costs for a one-time urine test, screening all pregnant women for asymptomatic bacteriuria [3] using a dipstick and which budget-impact can be expected compared to the existing test?

3) What are the costs for a one-time (quality assured) ultrasound-screening for foetal anomaly [4] of pregnant women who have chosen this screening based on an informed decision and which budget-impact can be expected?

Methods:

A) Study type of economic evaluation

For answering the research questions a budget-impact-analysis will be used.

B) Perspective

The cost calculations will be performed from the perspective of public reimbursement authorities.

D) Zeithorizont

The calculations will be performed for a short time horizon of three years until the year 2019 plus for a time horizon of ten years until 2026.

F) Data used for calculation

The calculations will be based on the following cost data:

• For services of the social/health insurance(s): rates according to existing contracts
• For inpatient services: existing lump sums for the relevant services

• Missing data: prices from international studies

The relevant quantities of services will be based on:

• For the number of benefit recipients: epidemiologic data from the existing reports of the re-orientation of the parent-child preventive care programme and the register of births

G) Discounting

Due to the short time horizon of the study, results will not be discounted.

H) Sensitivity analysis

Uncertain parameters will be optionally varied within the scope of simple (deterministic) sensitivity analyses.

Time schedule:

Juli 2016: scoping

August-Oktober2016: drafting of the report

November 2016: internal and external review, layout