PECUNIA project

Introduction

PECUNIA (ProgrammE in Costing, resource use measurement and outcome valuation for Use in multi-sectoral National and International health economic evaluAtions) is a three-year research project which started on January 1, 2018. It has received 3 million euros funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 779292 to improve the methods of economic evaluations in health care.

The PECUNIA consortium consists of ten partners from six European countries and is coordinated by the Medical University of Vienna. PECUNIA develops new standardised, harmonised and validated methods and tools for the assessment of costs and outcomes in European healthcare systems. Comparing and exploiting data across different countries and sectors, the project partners aim to provide directly comparable solutions to improve chronic and mental healthcare in all EU health systems.[1] [2]

1 Background

Rapidly ageing societies, growing populations and new health technologies have dramatically increased EU healthcare costs: Between 1972 and 2010, public health expenditure has risen from 4.5% to 8% of national income across the EU.[3] Especially long-term chronic and mental health diseases as well as multi-morbidities pose a major financial burden to European healthcare systems.[4] PECUNIA aims to tackle this challenge by developing new standardised, harmonised and validated methods for the assessment of costs and outcomes in cost-effectiveness analysis of healthcare interventions within and across European countries.[5]

The work is executed in close collaboration with external scientific advisors and broad outreach to all relevant stakeholders including the areas of health economics and health technology assessment (HTA), health care decision and policy makers, payers, mental health care professionals, public health experts, and people with mental disorders and their families.[6] Considering feasibility and relevant societal challenges in the European health systems, selected mental health disease areas (depression, schizophrenia, Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)) are used as illustrative examples for cost assessment. PECUNIA will lead to better understanding of the variations in costs and outcomes within and across countries, improve the quality, comparability and transferability of economic evaluations in Europe, and support the feasibility of broader economic and societal impacts measurement and valuation in multi-sectoral economic evaluations also for HTA.[7]

2 Objectives

Specific objectives of PECUNIA are to develop[8]:

New, internationally standardised, harmonised and validated, generic, self-reported, multi-sectoral resource use measurement (RUM) instrument consistent with a harmonised unit cost approach.
New, internationally standardised, harmonised and validated multi-sectoral unit costing templates and a multinational electronic compendium of core resource and service reference unit costs for selected mental health diseases.
Methods for estimating cross-national utility value sets (pan-European and supra-national) allowing increased comparability and transferability of health outcomes across Europe.
An electronic compendium of existing, generic, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and their metadata suitable for health and broader wellbeing assessment in multi-sectoral, multi-national, multi-person economic evaluations.
Increased stakeholder awareness and engagement to ensure rapid adoption of the developed methods, tools and information, and exploit (business) opportunities for their long-term sustainability and further expansion including open access via Zenodo.

3 Structure

PECUNIA is executed within eight different work packages. Work Packages 1-4 focus on cost assessment integrating both resource use and reference cost data via four cross-cutting horizontal methodological tasks (Horizontal Axes 1-4) for the identification, definition, measurement and valuation of health-related resource use in multiple sectors (health care, social care, education, criminal justice, employment and productivity, and patients and their families including informal care). In addition, more efficient methods for the harmonisation of outcome estimates that are comparable across EU countries will be developed integrating data from different geographical regions and sources (Work Package 5). Limitations of all data will be acknowledged through validation (Work Package 6) and through continuous input from stakeholders (Work Packages 7-8).[9]

4 See also

cost-effectiveness analysis
depression
economic evalution
European Network for Health Technology Assessment
European Public Health Association
health care
health economics
health system
health technology assessment
Horizon 2020
Maastricht University
Medical University of Vienna
mental health
Open access
patient-reported outcome
Pharmacoeconomics
public health
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
schizophrenia
unit costs
utility
Zenodo

References

[1] https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/213041/factsheet/en. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[2] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/about/consortium. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[3] Medeiros J, Schwierz C. 2013. Estimating the drivers and projecting long-term public health expenditure in the European Union: Baumol's cost disease revisited. In: Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission.

[4] Hewlett E, Moran V. 2014. Making mental health count: the social and economic costs of neglecting mental health care (OECD).

[5] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/project/vision-and-mission. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[6] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/about. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[7] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/project/vision-and-mission. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[8] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/project/approach. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

[9] https://www.pecunia-project.eu/project/approach. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

External links

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