Standardizing economic appraisal of health technology in the European Community.

The article criticizes the present variability of economic appraisal methodologies and supports their standardization as a means of ensuring the comparability of the results of studies done by different researchers. Standards should be theoretically sound and feasible, and are probably best attained by consensus between the research community and users. Standardization is not without some dangers, e.g. the risk of excessive rigidity or the discouragement of further methodological research. These dangers can however be easily avoided and are likely to be overcome by the potential benefits: comparability and transferability of the results of the studies; increased credibility and, hence, broader use of economic appraisal as a regular tool for decision making. It will also ensure that if applied in regulatory or reimbursement decisions in the EC Member States, economic evaluation does not contribute to create market barriers to the free movement of products within the Single Market of health technologies.