Value of information literature analysis: a review of applications in health risk management.

This article provides the first comprehensive review of value of information (VOI) analyses related to health risk management published in English in peer-reviewed journals by the end of 2001. VOI analysis represents a decision analytic technique that explicitly evaluates the benefit of collecting additional information to reduce or eliminate uncertainty. Through a content analysis of VOI applications, this article characterizes various attributes of VOI applications, shows the evolution of the methodology and advances in computing tools that allow analysis of increasingly complex problems, and suggests the need for some standardization of reporting methods and results. The authors' analysis shows a lack of cross-fertilization across topic areas and the tendency of articles to focus on demonstrating the usefulness of the VOI approach rather than applications to actual management decisions. This article provides important insights for VOI applications in medical decision making.