OMERACT: economic evaluations and health policy.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review how decisions are made about the delivery of health care. Limited resources and increasing health care costs have resulted internationally in a growing necessity to understand the economic consequences of health care delivery. Rheumatology remains underfunded because the societal impact of chronic conditions is not well appreciated in the current policy-making context. Although health policy development varies with the care delivery systems, economic evaluation can be used for incremental system-wide reform to prioritize spending across multiple diseases and interventions. It is important to understand how policy and funding decisions are made in order to see how they might be influenced.