Information barriers to the implementation of economic evaluations in Japan.

With increasing cost-containment pressures within healthcare systems worldwide, economic evaluations of medical technologies, particularly pharmaceuticals, are used to aid the allocation of expenditure and resources. Facing similar pressures, Japan will probably also introduce economic evaluation of health technology. However, the structure of the healthcare system in Japan does not lend itself naturally to the collection of the epidemiological and cost data required for economic evaluations in medicine. In addition, there are no formal methodological guidelines in place for these analyses. To overcome these information barriers in Japan, progress may be aided by the adoption of approaches used in other countries for data collection and guideline development.