PhD Literature Mastery Presentation – Nazia Rashid, PhD Student – “The Trials and Tribulations of Measuring the Value of Health Outcomes”

Please join us for this presentation by our own KGI Faculty member, Dr. Nazia Rashid, give her first PhD Milestone presentation!

Health has been considered as a function of length of life and quality of life, thus, the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) was developed as an attempt to combine the value of these attributes into a single index number. The QALY was the first recognized widely used value outcome because its’ calculation is simple: the change in utility value induced by the treatment is multiplied by the duration of the treatment effect to provide the number of QALYs gained. QALYs can then be incorporated with medical costs to arrive at a final common denominator of cost/QALY. This parameter can be used to compare the cost-effectiveness of any treatment. Nevertheless, QALYs have been criticized on technical and ethical grounds. During the recent decade, there have been alternative value measures created to circumvent the issues with QALYs. This presentation will introduce these newer measures and discuss the use of these measures.