A review of heath economic evaluation practice in the Netherlands: are we moving forward?

TL;DR

This review assesses whether the 2016 Dutch guidelines on health economic evaluation have improved practice by comparing analysis components before and after their implementation, focusing on methodology and reporting transparency.

Contribution

It provides an empirical comparison of Dutch economic evaluations pre- and post-guidelines, highlighting changes and ongoing limitations in methodology and transparency.

Findings

Increased use of advanced analytic approaches post-guidelines

Persistent limitations in software and reporting on missing data methods

Improved transparency in some evaluation components

Abstract

In 2016, the Dutch National Health Care Institute issued new guidelines that aggregated and updated previous recommendations on key elements for conducting economic evaluation. However, the impact on standard practice after the introduction of the guidelines in terms of design, methodology and reporting choices, is still uncertain. To assess this impact, we examine and compare key analysis components of economic evaluations conducted in the Netherlands before (2010-2015) and after (2016-2020) the introduction of the guidelines. We specifically focus on two aspects of the analysis that are crucial in determining the plausibility of the results: statistical methodology and missing data handling. Our review shows how many components of economic evaluations have changed in accordance with the new recommendations towards more transparent and advanced analytic approaches. However, potential limitations are identified in terms of the statistical software and information provided to support the choice of missing data methods.