Anna Heath1,2,3. 1. Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada. 2. Division of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 3. Department of Statistical Science, University College London, London, UK.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The expected value of sample information (EVSI) calculates the value of collecting additional information through a research study with a given design. However, standard EVSI analyses do not account for the slow and often incomplete implementation of the treatment recommendations that follow research. Thus, standard EVSI analyses do not correctly capture the value of the study. Previous research has developed measures to calculate the research value while adjusting for implementation challenges, but estimating these measures is a challenge. METHODS: Based on a method that assumes the implementation level is related to the strength of evidence in favor of the treatment, 2 implementation-adjusted EVSI calculation methods are developed. These novel methods circumvent the need for analytical calculations, which were restricted to settings in which normality could be assumed. The first method developed in this article uses computationally demanding nested simulations, based on the definition of the implementation-adjusted EVSI. The second method is based on adapting the moment matching method, a recently developed efficient EVSI computation method, to adjust for imperfect implementation. The implementation-adjusted EVSI is then calculated with the 2 methods across 3 examples. RESULTS: The maximum difference between the 2 methods is at most 6% in all examples. The efficient computation method is between 6 and 60 times faster than the nested simulation method in this case study and could be used in practice. CONCLUSIONS: This article permits the calculation of an implementation-adjusted EVSI using realistic assumptions. The efficient estimation method is accurate and can estimate the implementation-adjusted EVSI in practice. By adapting standard EVSI estimation methods, adjustments for imperfect implementation can be made with the same computational cost as a standard EVSI analysis. HIGHLIGHTS: Standard expected value of sample information (EVSI) analyses do not account for the fact that treatment implementation following research is often slow and incomplete, meaning they incorrectly capture the value of the study.Two methods, based on nested Monte Carlo sampling and the moment matching EVSI calculation method, are developed to adjust EVSI calculations for imperfect implementation when the speed and level of the implementation of a new treatment depends on the strength of evidence in favor of the treatment.The 2 methods we develop provide similar estimates for the implementation-adjusted EVSI.Our methods extend current EVSI calculation algorithms and thus require limited additional computational complexity.
BACKGROUND: The expected value of sample information (EVSI) calculates the value of collecting additional information through a research study with a given design. However, standard EVSI analyses do not account for the slow and often incomplete implementation of the treatment recommendations that follow research. Thus, standard EVSI analyses do not correctly capture the value of the study. Previous research has developed measures to calculate the research value while adjusting for implementation challenges, but estimating these measures is a challenge. METHODS: Based on a method that assumes the implementation level is related to the strength of evidence in favor of the treatment, 2 implementation-adjusted EVSI calculation methods are developed. These novel methods circumvent the need for analytical calculations, which were restricted to settings in which normality could be assumed. The first method developed in this article uses computationally demanding nested simulations, based on the definition of the implementation-adjusted EVSI. The second method is based on adapting the moment matching method, a recently developed efficient EVSI computation method, to adjust for imperfect implementation. The implementation-adjusted EVSI is then calculated with the 2 methods across 3 examples. RESULTS: The maximum difference between the 2 methods is at most 6% in all examples. The efficient computation method is between 6 and 60 times faster than the nested simulation method in this case study and could be used in practice. CONCLUSIONS: This article permits the calculation of an implementation-adjusted EVSI using realistic assumptions. The efficient estimation method is accurate and can estimate the implementation-adjusted EVSI in practice. By adapting standard EVSI estimation methods, adjustments for imperfect implementation can be made with the same computational cost as a standard EVSI analysis. HIGHLIGHTS: Standard expected value of sample information (EVSI) analyses do not account for the fact that treatment implementation following research is often slow and incomplete, meaning they incorrectly capture the value of the study.Two methods, based on nested Monte Carlo sampling and the moment matching EVSI calculation method, are developed to adjust EVSI calculations for imperfect implementation when the speed and level of the implementation of a new treatment depends on the strength of evidence in favor of the treatment.The 2 methods we develop provide similar estimates for the implementation-adjusted EVSI.Our methods extend current EVSI calculation algorithms and thus require limited additional computational complexity.
Entities:
Keywords:
decision analysis; expected value of sample information; health economic decision modeling; implementation dynamics; research design; value of information
The expected value of sample information (EVSI) can be a tool for research prioritization
and trial design as it calculates the value of collecting additional information through
a proposed study with a specific design.[1,2] When coupled with a health economic
decision model,
EVSI calculates the value of reducing the statistical uncertainty in the
parameters underlying this model before making a decision. The information collected in
a study has value if it indicates that the current optimal treatment is, in fact,
nonoptimal. This is because the information has prevented decision makers from
implementing the incorrect treatment and thereby incurring an opportunity loss.EVSI can prioritize studies with the highest expected net economic benefit by computing
EVSI for a range of proposed studies and subtracting the study costs.
This prioritization process requires an estimate of the population-level EVSI
from which the study costs are subtracted to compute the expected net benefit of
sampling (ENBS).
Population-level EVSI is usually estimated by multiplying the individual-level
EVSI, the output of standard calculations, by the number of people who would be affected
by the decision in a given year and the decision horizon.
This decision horizon is defined as the length of time before the decision will
be reassessed (i.e., due to the development of a new treatment option).This estimation of the population-level EVSI assumes that any treatment recommended
following the study is implemented for all future patients.[8,9] In practice, this assumption is
unrealistic, as treatment recommendations are often slow to diffuse into clinical practice.
Thus, standard estimates of the population-level EVSI will result in biased ENBS
estimates, although the direction of this bias is dependant on the underlying decision
model and the definition of the counterfactual.[9,11] Thus, ENBS can be estimated
accurately only if the population-level EVSI is adjusted for realistic expectations
about the implementation of the recommended treatment, following study completion.Several frameworks consider the interplay between the value of information and imperfect
implementation,[8-10,12] although Fenwick et al.
considered only the value of perfect, rather than study-specific, information.
Andronis and Barton
extended the Fenwick et al. framework to define an implementation-adjusted EVSI
but facilitated their calculations by making the unrealistic assumption that the speed
of adoption and the saturation level of the most cost-effective treatment is not related
to the future data. In contrast, Willan and Eckermann
suggested that the implementation dynamics depend on the probability that a given
treatment is cost effective; that is, treatments with a higher probability of
cost-effectiveness achieve a higher saturation level.
Finally, Grimm et al.
split the value of a research study into 2 components that compute the research’s
impact on implementation and information separately.Willan and Eckermann
computed the implementation-adjusted EVSI by assuming that both the value of each
treatment and the data collected in the study follow a normal distribution, allowing for
analytical results. Elsewhere, Grimm et al.
did not present an algorithm to estimate the value of the research’s impact on
implementation. Thus, the value of a research study, adjusting for imperfect
implementation, can currently be achieved only in a small number of models that meet
these normality assumptions. To overcome the practical challenge of adjusted analyses,
we develop 2 algorithms to estimate the implementation-adjusted EVSI, irrespective of
the underlying model structure and study design.First, we define EVSI and how it can be adjusted for imperfect implementation.
A general purpose nested simulation algorithm is then adjusted to estimate the
implementation-adjusted EVSI.
This algorithm can be applied irrespective of the model complexity and the
data-generation process. However, as is the case with nonadjusted EVSI estimation,
this method is computationally intensive, acting as a significant barrier for the
proposed analyses.Recent computation methods have been developed to efficiently compute individual-level
unadjusted EVSI irrespective of the structural form of the underlying health economic
decision model and study design.[14-19] However, these methods cannot
directly estimate the implementation-adjusted EVSI, as the probability that a given
intervention is cost-effective cannot be estimated. Thus, one of these methods, known as
the moment matching method,[18,19]
is adapted so this probability can be estimated. From this, the implementation-adjusted
EVSI can then be computed. This novel method allows efficient estimation of the
implementation-adjusted EVSI, based on realistic model structures and trial designs.Following the development of these 2 methods, the implementation-adjusted EVSI is
estimated for 3 proposed studies based on a previously published example. The
computationally intensive nested simulation method and the adapted efficient computation
method give similar estimates of the implementation-adjusted EVSI. As expected, the
efficient computation method is significantly faster than the nested simulation method.
Importantly, as these 2 methods are adjusted from currently available computation
methods, estimating the implementation-adjusted EVSI does not increase the computational
complexity of the EVSI analysis. Thus, the implementation-adjusted EVSI can be easily
estimated, and the implementation-adjusted net value of research can be used to
determine the optimal study design for future data collection, irrespective of model
structure.
EVSI
Health economic decision models estimate the costs and benefits of different
treatment options to help decision makers select the optimal treatment from
potential alternatives. These models are based on a set of model
parameters
that represent real-world quantities (e.g., prevalence, quality of
life weights, relative effects, and treatment costs). The statistical uncertainty in
the estimates of these parameters is usually characterized through a joint
probability distribution
in a process known as probabilistic analysis (or probabilistic
sensitivity analysis). The costs and benefits estimated from a probabilistic health
economic decision model can be combined to measure the net benefit of a given
treatment (measured in monetary or health units), denoted
,
.
Given the current evidence about the parameters, defined in
, the best treatment is the one that maximizes the expected net
benefit,
.
The net benefit measures the average benefit across the whole population,
implying that
,
, would be known if all parameter uncertainty could be resolved.EVSI calculates the value of collecting additional information about the model
parameters
to improve decision making. Assume that this information is
collected through a proposed research study that aims to collect data
.
If the data
were collected and realized to a specific data set
, then it would be combined with the current evidence to update the
distribution of
,
. This updated distribution for
would change the distribution for the net benefits
,
. The (potentially new) optimal treatment would again be found by
taking the expectation of the net benefit
. From this, the value of observing
isHowever, as the data have not been collected, the EVSI is calculated by taking an
expectation over all possible studies
:The distribution of all potential data sets
is defined through the joint distributionwhere
is the sampling distribution of the data conditional on the
parameters and
is the current distribution of the model parameters, defined for
the probabilistic analysis.
Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation
Willan and Eckermann
defined the implementation-adjusted EVSI (
) as the difference between the expected opportunity loss under the
current decision and the expected opportunity loss of the decision made with
additional information. The supplementary material demonstrates that this definition can be
expressed as the difference between the “value of the current decision” and the
“expected value of the decision made with additional information” to more closely
mimic the standard EVSI definition. The value of the current decision is equal
towhere
is the current market share of the
th intervention. The phrase market share
indicates the proportion of eligible patients who receive intervention
, even in settings where there is not a traditional market (e.g.,
for a public health intervention that is rolled out over time).The value of the decision made after a specific additional data set
has been collected iswhere
is the market share of the
th intervention, conditional on the observed data
. The value
is then the difference between
and
. However, the data have not been observed, and so
is defined by taking the expectation of
over all possible data setsThe value of the current decision,
, is unlikely to be equal to the value of the optimal treatment,
because adjustments must be made for current issues in implementation.
Note that
is estimated at the individual level, with the population-level
calculated by multiplying by the number of people affected yearly
by the decision and the decision horizon, as in standard EVSI analyses., defined in Eq. 6, is equal to the expected value of a specific
implementation measure, defined by Grimm et al.
in Appendix Equation A.3. Grimm et al. used this wording as
calculates the expected value the decision maker would gain by
changing the implementation of the treatments based on the sample information. Thus,
it is unclear whether
should be considered a value of information measure or a value of
implementation measure. In settings in which the collected data do not affect the
implementation levels, that is, where
for all
, then
computes the value of improving implementation. However, provided
the future market share is related to the collected data,
computes the value of collecting information to improve
implementation. In this case, information has positive value when it increases the
market share of the most cost-effective treatment, based on the available
evidence.
Defining the Sample Specific Market Share
All EVSI calculation methods estimate
, across the distribution of plausible data sets
.
Thus,
is calculated by estimating the sample-specific market share
. Willan and Eckermann defined
,
, as a function of the probability that a given intervention is
the most cost-effective,
,with the functional form of
dependent on the decision problem. For example, if clinical
practice is reticent to move away from current practice (
), then a higher probability of cost-effectiveness would be
required to implement the novel treatment (
). Thus, to calculate
,
must be estimated.
Estimating the Implementation-Adjusted EVSI
Nested Monte Carlo Simulation
Unless restrictive assumptions are made, EVSI is estimated using simulation-based methods.
The first general purpose simulation method for estimating EVSI is based
on a nested simulation procedure
; first,
plausible data sets
,
are simulated from
. Simulations from the marginal distribution of
can be obtained by simulating a parameter set
and then simulating a data set from
for,
.
Following this,
simulations from
are required for each
, denoted
. The net benefit for each treatment must be computed for each
simulated parameter set
,
,
, requiring
evaluations of each net benefit function. The expected net
benefit for treatment
, conditional on the sample
is estimated by calculating the sample average net benefitThe EVSI is then approximated byThis algorithm can be adapted to estimate
by estimating the sample-specific probability of
cost-effectiveness for treatment
as the proportion of simulations in which treatment
is optimal;where
equals 1 if the condition is true and 0 otherwise. From this,
the market share for each treatment can be estimated
, and
,However, this algorithm is computationally intensive, as it requires
evaluations of the
net benefit functions. Thus, in practical health economic
decision models in which the net benefit function is nontrivial to compute, this
method cannot compute
within a feasible time frame.
The Moment Matching Method
The moment matching method is an efficient nested simulation method for EVSI that
reduces the number of data sets required to compute EVSI from
, usually at least 1000, to
, which is usually between 30 and 50.
The standard moment matching method approximates
by reducing the variance of simulated values that derive from a
function of the net benefit.
The required function of
is defined by noting that the sampling distribution of
is typically dependent on a subset of the model parameters
. The moment matching method then rescales the conditional
expectation of the net benefit, conditional on
,
. In general,
can be estimated by fitting a nonparametric regression between the
simulated values of
and the simulated net benefit values that were calculated with the
specific value of
and extracting the fitted values from this regression.
If the sampling distribution of the data is defined using all the model
parameters, then
, and EVSI can then be approximated by rescaling
directly.To determine the variance reduction factor,
data sets are simulated from the distribution of plausible data
sets,
,
.
For each of these
data sets,
values are simulated from
,
and compute the net benefit for each treatment option,
. For each simulated data set, the sample variance of the net
benefits is calculated, before computing the average variance across these
estimates. Finally, the simulated values for
are rescaled so their variance is equal to the difference between
the variance of the initial net benefit simulations and the average variance from
the nested simulations.
This rescaling provides
simulations
,
, that approximate
for each decision option
. To accurately estimate the EVSI, the
data sets should be generated so they cover the complete range of
possible data sets. This can be achieved by extracting the
quantiles from the simulated values of
from the probailistic analysis. A separate data set is then
generated for each quantile.
Functions in R are provided in the supplementary material to estimate
and specify the appropriate values of
to generate the required data sets.
Adjusting the Moment Matching Method for Imperfect Implementation
As the standard moment matching procedure estimates only the distribution of the
mean net benefit, conditional on the future data, it cannot estimate the
probability of cost-effectiveness
, which depends on the full distribution of the net benefit.
Thus, currently the moment matching method can estimate only
for the
data sets used in the nested simulation procedure and is now
extended to compute
for all plausible data sets.The standard moment matching method produces simulations of
,
. In general,
is related to the value of
, as the larger the expected net benefit, the more likely the
treatment is to be cost-effective. Therefore, this extension for the moment
matching method aims to estimate the probability of cost-effectiveness,
, as a function of
. To achieve this,
is estimated for each of the
data sets,
, from the nested simulations using Eq. 10, with
estimated from Eq. 8. From these estimates, nonlinear
regression is used to approximate the function
;where
is the error due to estimating
by simulation.The functional form for
is selected by noting that 1)
is a probability and thus constrained between 0 and 1; 2) as
increases,
also increases as the treatment is becoming more valuable; and
3)
increases smoothly as
increases, that is, if the expected net benefits are similar
than the probability of cost-effectiveness will also be similar. The generalized
logistic function is a flexible function that exhibits these 3 features,
sowhere
,
, and
are from the data
and
for
.
,
, and
can be estimated using either Bayesian or frequentist methods.
However, maximum likelihood methods can struggle to converge in some settings,
while all 3 model parameters can be estimated in a Bayesian framework using
weakly informative priors to improve convergence. These priors are discussed,
along with model code, in the supplementary material.Once estimates have been obtained for
,
, and
, the regression model can calculate the fitted values of
for each of the simulations for
,
, denoted
. The market share of each treatment can then be computed using
). From this,
can be estimated using the moment matching method as
Estimating Implementation-Adjusted EVSI across Sample Size
The moment matching method can be extended to estimate EVSI across a range of
sample sizes of the proposed study (
.
This is achieved by creating a sequence of sample sizes,
,
, between
and
. Each simulated data set is then generated with a different
sample size, that is, the data set
contains data from
simulated individuals. The variance reduction factor for a
given sample size
is then found using nonlinear regression.
Specifically, a nonlinear regression is fit between the posterior
variance of the net benefit conditional on the sample
and the sample size
. The variance reduction factor for the sample size
is then estimated by calculating the fitted value from this
regression for
. The Moment matching estimation method for
is now extended so it can be used across sample size.To achieve this, the method proceeds, similar to before, by first calculating
and
for each of the nested simulations. As each of these pairs has
a different sample size, the regression equation is adapted so
is also a function of the sample size
,where
. In this setting,
can still be represented by a generalized logistic function
but is adjusted to account for the fact that the larger the sample size, the
faster the probability of cost-effectiveness will increase from 0 and 1,where
is an additional parameter defining the rate at which the
probability of cost-effectiveness increases due to the sample size. The 4
parameters in this model,
,
,
, and
, can be estimated in a Bayesian or frequentist framework, with
the best performance seen using Bayesian methods with weakly informative
priors.Once these parameters have been estimated,
for a specific sample size
can be estimated. To achieve this, the values for
for the sample size
are estimated using the moment matching method. The
probability of cost-effectiveness is then estimated by computing
. From this, the market share is estimated, and
is calculated from Eq. 14.
Calculating EVSI Adjusted for Imperfect Implementation
This section estimates
for a previously developed health economic model
to compare the 2 estimation methods and demonstrate their accuracy. The
computational efficiency of the augmented moment matching method is also
investigated.
A Health Economic Decision Model for Reduced Risk of a Critical Event
The case study is based on a previously developed decision tree model.
This decision model has 2 interventions,
(standard care) and
(novel treatment). Individuals are at risk of a critical event
that would lead to a reduced quality of life (
) for the
remaining years of their life and incur a yearly treatment
cost (
). The novel treatment has a fixed cost (
) and reduces the probability of experiencing this critical
event but with a risk of side effects. These side effects give a short-term
reduction in quality of life (
and incur a one-off cost (
). The model has 4 uncertain parameters, the baseline
probability of critical event (
), the odds ratio of the critical event under the novel
treatment (
), the probability of side effects on treatment
(
, and the quality-of-life detriment due to the critical event.
These 4 parameters are modeled using independent probability distributions with
the distributions, and the values of the fixed parameters, given in Table 1.
Table 1
Parameter Specification for the Decision Model Adapted from Ades et al.
and Strong et al.
Description
Parameter
Mean
Distribution
Probability of critical event with no treatment
PC
0.15
Beta(15,85)
Odds ratio of critical event with treatment
OR
0.2636
log(OR)~N(−1.5,13)
Probability of critical event with treatment
PT
0.0440
PT=PCOR1−Pc+PCOR
Probability of side effects on treatment
PSE
0.25
Beta(3,9)
Quality of life after critical event
QC
0.6405
logit (QC)~N(0.6,16)
Remaining years of life
L
30
Fixed
Cost of treating critical event
CC
$200,000
Fixed
New treatment cost
CT
$15,000
Fixed
Cost of treating side effects
CSE
$100,000
Fixed
Quality-of-life detriment due to side effects
QSE
1
Fixed
Willingness to pay for 1 quality-of-life unit
λ
$75,000
Fixed
Parameter Specification for the Decision Model Adapted from Ades et al.
and Strong et al.The decision tree structure of the model implies that the net benefit is
calculated as follows for
and
, respectively:
Proposed Future Studies
Three alternative proposed studies are considered.
The first study aims to reduce uncertainty in the probability of side
effects with the new treatment by offering 60 individuals the treatment and
observing the number who experience side effects. The data are modeled using a
binomial distribution,
. The second study aims to reduce uncertainty in the quality of
life after the critical event by recording the quality of life for 100
individuals who have experienced the critical event. The individual-level
variation in the logit of quality of life is modeled using a normal distribution
with variance 2,
. Finally, study 3 aims to reduce uncertainty in the odds ratio
of effectiveness of the new treatment compared with the standard of care. This
study undertakes a randomized controlled trial with 200 patients on each arm
with the data simulated from 2 binomial distribution, one for each treatment
arm,
and
.
Dynamics of Implementation
Based on the current information, standard care has an average net benefit of
, and the novel treatment has an average net benefit of
. Thus, the current optimal treatment is the novel treatment.
However, there is substantial uncertainty about this result, with only a 57%
chance that the novel treatment is the most cost-effective. To adjust for
imperfect implementation, the risk of side effects for the novel treatment is
currently assumed to make clinicians reluctant to implement it. Thus, the novel
treatment is not currently used, and the value of the current decision isIt is then assumed that clinicians will begin to adopt the novel treatment when
the probability of cost-effectiveness is greater than 60%. However, some
clinicians will have higher levels of risk aversion and will therefore avoid the
novel treatment until the evidence of cost-effectiveness is clearer. The uptake
of the novel treatment is assumed to relate linearly to the probability of
cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, the uptake is assumed to be instantaneous and
static, with full treatment switching achieved if the probability of
cost-effectiveness is 1. This gives a functional form ofAs the example has 2 potential decision options,
is defined as to estimate
across the range of plausible data sets
.
Assessing the Performance of the Moment Matching Method
To assess the estimation methods for
, the implementation-adjusted EVSI will be calculated for the 3
studies. To determine the expected value of the standard of care and the novel
treatment under current information,
was set to 10,000. To ensure a feasible computation time for
the nested Monte Carlo method,
and
, and for the moment matching method,
and
.The 2 methods will be compared in terms of the estimates of
across the 3 examples. The estimates of the relationship
between the probability that the novel treatment is cost-effective and the
sample-specific incremental net benefit (i.e., the difference between the net
benefit for no treatment and the novel treatment) will also be compared
graphically to determine whether the functional form chosen for the regression
is sufficiently flexible to capture the varied relationships. Finally, the
computational time required to generate the
estimate will be computed.
Results
Implementation-Adjusted EVSI
Table 2 contains the
estimates from the nested Monte Carlo method and the augmented
moment matching method. The 2 methods are very similar, with the largest
discrepancy observed for study 3, which collects additional information to
estimate the odds ratio of the critical event with treatment. However, the
discrepancy is only about 6% of the
estimate. Note that as both of these estimates are obtained
using simulation methods, some differences between the 2 estimates are expected.
Thus, it seems likely that both methods were able to accurately estimate
in this example without making restrictive assumptions about
the distribution of the net benefit or the data-generating mechanism.
Table 2
Estimated Implementation-Adjusted EVSI (
) and the Computational Time Required to Obtain These
Estimates for the 3 Studies Considered for the Ades et al.
Example
Study
Estimate of EVSIIM
Computational Time (s)
Nested Monte Carlo
Moment Matching
Nested Monte Carlo
Moment Matching
1: Updating pSE
6,086
6,013
12
2.1
2: Updating QC
1,924
1,849
12
2.1
3: Updating OR
1,778
1,669
272
4.7
All estimates are obtained using both the nested Monte Carlo method
and the moment matching method.
Estimated Implementation-Adjusted EVSI (
) and the Computational Time Required to Obtain These
Estimates for the 3 Studies Considered for the Ades et al.
ExampleAll estimates are obtained using both the nested Monte Carlo method
and the moment matching method.
Estimating the Relationship between the Probability of Cost-Effectiveness and
the Expected Net Benefit
Figure 1 plots the
relationship between
, the probability that the novel treatment is cost-effective,
and
, the expected posterior incremental net benefit. In this case,
positive values of the incremental net benefit indicate that the novel treatment
is optimal, so
would be expected to be about 0.5 when
is equal to 0. The gray dashed line represents the
relationship estimated with the moment matching method, and the solid black line
represents the relationship estimated with the nested Monte Carlo method. For
all 3 studies, the relationship between
and
is similar across the 2 methods. The shape of the relationship
changes across the 3 studies but is well captured by the generalized logistic
function proposed for the regression. Discrepancies between the 2 curves always
occur in areas of low density for the expected incremental net benefit, shown by
the density plots at the top in Figure 1. As
is the product of
and a function of
, these sections where the curve is poorly estimated have very
limited impact on the overall results. These functions are displayed for a given
sample size. However, the moment matching method can estimate
for different alternative sample sizes. In this case, the
comparison values estimated using nested Monte Carlo would have to be recomputed
and so these results are not shown.
Figure 1
Estimated functional relationship between the probability of
cost-effectiveness and the sample-specific expected incremental net
benefit between the 2 treatment options for the 3 examples. The
left-hand panel is for study 1, which updates
; the middle panel is for study 2, which updates
; and the right-hand panel is for study 3, which
updates
. The black line represents the estimates generated by
the nested Monte Carlo (NMC) method, and the gray dashed line represents
the estimates generated by the moment matching (MM) method. The density
of the sample-specific expected incremental net benefit is represented
above each plot, with a gray density plot (estimated by the MM method)
plotted over a black density plot from the NMC method.
Estimated functional relationship between the probability of
cost-effectiveness and the sample-specific expected incremental net
benefit between the 2 treatment options for the 3 examples. The
left-hand panel is for study 1, which updates
; the middle panel is for study 2, which updates
; and the right-hand panel is for study 3, which
updates
. The black line represents the estimates generated by
the nested Monte Carlo (NMC) method, and the gray dashed line represents
the estimates generated by the moment matching (MM) method. The density
of the sample-specific expected incremental net benefit is represented
above each plot, with a gray density plot (estimated by the MM method)
plotted over a black density plot from the NMC method.
Computational Time
Table 2 displays the
time taken (in seconds) to compute the
for all 3 examples for the 2 methods. The moment matching
method is between 6 and 60 times faster than the nested Monte Carlo method. For
this example, the moment matching method requires 100 times fewer model runs
than the nested Monte Carlo method to achieve the same accuracy. Fitting the
regression model requires a fixed computational cost of about 2 s. Thus, in
decision models in which each model run has a nonnegligible computational cost,
the moment matching method will be about 100 times faster than the nested Monte
Carlo method, if
,
, and
are set to the same values used in this article. Finally, note
that the moment matching method estimates
across sample size, so the reported computational times also
allow us to recompute
for alternative sample sizes.
Discussion
It has been suggested that value-of-information analyses should consider realistic
assumptions about the implementation of new health care technologies.[8-10,12]
measures the expected value of changing the implementation levels
of the treatments through a research study by assuming that treatment implementation
is likely to be more complete and faster if stronger evidence exists in favor of
that treatment.[8,10] However, the only method that discussed the computation of
relied on restrictive assumptions to obtain analytic formulas.
Thus, it was unclear how to compute
in complex models that did not respect these assumptions.This article addresses this gap by developing 2 methods to estimate the probability
that a given treatment is cost-effective across the range of plausible data sets. A
computationally expensive nested simulation method to estimate
is developed, based on the standard nested EVSI calculation method.
The moment matching method for EVSI calculation is then extended to
efficiently estimate
by using nonlinear regression to estimate the probability of
cost-effectiveness from the expected posterior net benefit. These 2 methods provide
similar estimates of
, although the adjusted moment matching method is substantially
faster. An extended moment matching method is also introduced to compute
across different sample sizes for the proposed future study. Thus,
can now be computed for a range of models to support research
prioritization and design, either alone
or combined with the standard EVSI to compute the expected value of research.A limitation of this work is that to calculate
using these methods, the function
that calculates the market share based on the probability of
cost-effectiveness must be specified. The example in this article assumed that
market share increased linearly to 100%, when the probability of cost-effectiveness
for the novel treatment is greater than 0.6. However,
is likely to be more complex in practice and may be challenging to
determine. Grimm et al.
used diffusion models to make realistic assumptions about the implementation
changes over time, but these would need to be reestimated to determine how the
strength of evidence affects diffusion.If the functional form of
is unknown, it would be possible to undertake a sensitivity
analysis to its functional form. Using these methods, this sensitivity analysis
would be relatively inexpensive, as the probability of cost-effectiveness would not
need to be recomputed. However, it may be challenging to determine the appropriate
range of functional forms that should be considered in this sensitivity analyses,
especially if the possibility of implementation levels changing over time was also
included.Another limitation is the assumption that implementation is related to the outcome of
a cost-effectiveness analysis (i.e., the probability of cost-effectiveness).
Implementation could be more closely related to results based on the primary
clinical outcome alone, rather than the cost-effectiveness, or based on safety
concerns. These methods could be adapted to estimate the probability that a given
treatment is effective (i.e., the primary clinical outcome is largest for a specific
treatment) or safe (i.e., adverse events are lower). The market share could then be
estimated based on this probability of effectiveness or safety. This analysis would
jointly consider potential complementary aspects of clinical decision making (i.e.,
cost-effectiveness and clinical efficacy or safety) in study design.Click here for additional data file.Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-mdm-10.1177_0272989X211073098 for Calculating
Expected Value of Sample Information Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation by
Anna Heath in Medical Decision MakingClick here for additional data file.Supplemental material, sj-r-1-mdm-10.1177_0272989X211073098 for Calculating
Expected Value of Sample Information Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation by
Anna Heath in Medical Decision MakingClick here for additional data file.Supplemental material, sj-r-2-mdm-10.1177_0272989X211073098 for Calculating
Expected Value of Sample Information Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation by
Anna Heath in Medical Decision MakingClick here for additional data file.Supplemental material, sj-r-3-mdm-10.1177_0272989X211073098 for Calculating
Expected Value of Sample Information Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation by
Anna Heath in Medical Decision MakingClick here for additional data file.Supplemental material, sj-r-4-mdm-10.1177_0272989X211073098 for Calculating
Expected Value of Sample Information Adjusting for Imperfect Implementation by
Anna Heath in Medical Decision Making
Authors: Andrew H Briggs; Milton C Weinstein; Elisabeth A L Fenwick; Jonathan Karnon; Mark J Sculpher; A David Paltiel Journal: Value Health Date: 2012 Sep-Oct Impact factor: 5.725
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