@misc{10481/74434,
year = {2022},
month = {3},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10481/74434},
abstract = {Introduction: Costs are one of the critical factors for the transferability of the results in health technology assessment
and economic evaluation. The objective is to develop a cost database at the European level to facilitate cross-border
cost comparisons in different settings and explains the factors that lead to differences in healthcare costs in different
countries, taking into account the differences between health systems and other factors.
Methodology: The core of the database is compounded of three main categories (primary resources, composite
goods and services, and complex processes and interventions) organized into 13 subcategories. A number of elements
providing as detailed information of unit cost as possible were identified in order to mitigate the problem of
comparability. Consortium partners validated both the database structure and selected costing items.
Results: Twenty-seven costing items included in the EU HCSCD resulted in 1450 unit costs when taking into account
all item subtypes and countries. Cross-country differences in costs are driven by the type of resources included in the
costing items (e.g., overhead costs in case of complex processes and interventions) or by the variety of existing brands
and/or models and the type of unit value in most of the primary resources.
Conclusion: The EU HCSCD is the only public unit healthcare and social cost database at European level that gather
data on unit costs and explains differences in costs across countries. Its maintenance and regular data updating will
enable establishing specific systems for generating and recording information that will meet many of its current
limitations.},
organization = {European Commission	779312},
publisher = {BMC},
keywords = {Costs},
keywords = {Economic evaluation},
keywords = {Transferability},
keywords = {Database},
keywords = {Costing methodology},
title = {Development of the European Healthcare and Social Cost Database (EU HCSCD) for use in economic evaluation of healthcare programs},
doi = {10.1186/s12913-022-07791-z},
author = {Espín, Jaime and Špacírová, Zuzana and Rovira, Joan and Epstein, David Mark and Olry de Labry Lima, Antonio and García Mochón, Leticia},
}