Pharmacoeconomics and Safe Medication Use
Pharmacoeconomics is the description and analysis of the costs of drugs and pharmaceutical services as
well as their effects on individuals, health care systems, and/or society.
product or service. These can convey different results, depending on disease state/therapy being evaluated,
alternative therapies, perspective (e.g., payer, provider, patient, society), and intended outcome.
Full pharmacoeconomic analyses include the following:
Cost-benefit
ii.
Cost-effectiveness
iii.
Cost-minimization
iv.
Cost-utility
Humanistic outcomes or patient-reported outcome measures include the following:
Functional status
ii.
Health status
iii.
Health-related quality of life
iv.
Patient satisfaction
Quality of life
Costs versus charges
Although the term charges alone is often used in the literature, charges are actually costs (also
termed expenses) plus profit or a combination of the acquisition cost for a specific item used (e.g.,
cost of medication dose administered) plus estimated costs to provide the service (e.g., workflow
and personnel associated with the process for medication use) plus a markup.
Type of Cost
Definition
Examples
Direct
•
Medical
•
Non-medical
Costs associated with prevention, detection,
or treatment of a disease or illness
Costs associated with medical care
Costs as a result of disease or illness that do
not involve the purchase of medical services
Fixed (costs that remain constant and
are not dependent on volume of use; not
typically included in pharmacoeconomic
evaluations): Rent, salaried workers
Variable (costs depend on volume of use):
Laboratory tests, medications, procedures
Child care, specialty diets, transportation
Indirect
Costs associated with morbidity or mortal-
ity, related to change in productivity as a
result of disease or illness
Costs because of inability to work, income
lost because of premature death
Intangible
Costs associated with nonfinancial out-
comes of disease
Costs from posttraumatic stress disorder
from ICU survival; post-ICU syndrome
Incremental
Additional costs to purchase additional
benefit or effect of medical care
Additional medications to control atrial
fibrillation that started in ICU
Total
Inclusion of all the above costs
N/A
N/A = not applicable.