A Comparison of Four Software Programs for Implementing Decision Analytic Cost-Effectiveness Models

Chase Hollman, Mike Paulden (), Petros Pechlivanoglou and Christopher McCabe
Additional contact information
Chase Hollman: University of Alberta
Mike Paulden: University of Alberta
Petros Pechlivanoglou: The Hospital for Sick Children
Christopher McCabe: University of Alberta

PharmacoEconomics, 2017, vol. 35, issue 8, No 7, 817-830

Abstract: Abstract The volume and technical complexity of both academic and commercial research using decision analytic modelling has increased rapidly over the last two decades. The range of software programs used for their implementation has also increased, but it remains true that a small number of programs account for the vast majority of cost-effectiveness modelling work. We report a comparison of four software programs: TreeAge Pro, Microsoft Excel, R and MATLAB. Our focus is on software commonly used for building Markov models and decision trees to conduct cohort simulations, given their predominance in the published literature around cost-effectiveness modelling. Our comparison uses three qualitative criteria as proposed by Eddy et al.: “transparency and validation”, “learning curve” and “capability”. In addition, we introduce the quantitative criterion of processing speed. We also consider the cost of each program to academic users and commercial users. We rank the programs based on each of these criteria. We find that, whilst Microsoft Excel and TreeAge Pro are good programs for educational purposes and for producing the types of analyses typically required by health technology assessment agencies, the efficiency and transparency advantages of programming languages such as MATLAB and R become increasingly valuable when more complex analyses are required.

Keywords: Health Technology Assessment; Integrate Development Environment; Health Technology Assessment Agency; Debug Tool; Markov Tree (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40273-017-0510-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:pharme:v:35:y:2017:i:8:d:10.1007_s40273-017-0510-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40273

DOI: 10.1007/s40273-017-0510-8

Access Statistics for this article

PharmacoEconomics is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson and Christopher I. Carswell

More articles in PharmacoEconomics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().