ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the way in which health economics and health outcomes can be addressed meaningfully and used with payers to optimize access and pricing decisions for global markets. The authors discuss value-based pricing, a seemingly innovative way to address some of the issues that have been encountered particularly in the UK with cost-effectiveness-based reimbursement decision-making. The terms health outcomes, health economics and pharmaco-economics are all used in a similar context to cost-related decision-making in allocation of healthcare resources. The health outcomes discipline broadly focuses on humanistic outcomes of a healthcare intervention. Long-term patient outcomes are of crucial importance in evaluating the beneficial impact of a treatment. Health outcomes improvements can be very compelling to patients, family and physicians. Perspective is the formal viewpoint that the health economic evaluation considers in its assessment of benefits and particularly cost. A new drug, device or treatment may result in cost savings in other healthcare areas.
