Impact of ICER Assessments on Payer Decision Making in the United States

Objectives: To evaluate how payers utilize Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) assessments to inform coverage or formulary decisions. Method(s): Double-blinded, web-based survey was fielded through Xcenda's research panel, the Managed Care Network, from June to July 2022. Result(s): A total of 51 payers from health plans (n=27), integrated delivery networks (n=12), and pharmacy benefit managers (n=12) participated in the survey. When assessing the usefulness of ICER's value assessment framework (VAF) to inform formulary decisions within their organizations, 57% of payers indicated it was extremely/very useful, 33% indicated somewhat useful, and 10% indicated not at all/not very useful. Most respondents (73%) agreed that ICER assessments are aligned with their organization's internal assessment. Utilization of ICER's VAF was most prevalent in high-cost drug or disease states (78%), rare/orphan disease states (71%), and oncology/hematology disease states (67%). Payers reported less use in primary care disease states (29%), COVID-19 (8%), and digital therapeutics (4%). In the last 24 months, 20% of payers reported ICER's recommendations often influenced coverage decisions, 59% indicated occasional influence, and 22% indicated no influence. In the last 24 months, payers indicated the top 5 ICER assessments that influenced their coverage decisions included high cholesterol (38%), Alzheimer's disease (36%), atopic dermatitis (33%), multiple myeloma (31%), and chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (28%). ICER assessments that were less impactful included beta thalassemia (3%), digital health technologies (3%), and supervised injection facilities (3%). Payers reported using ICER assessments to inform both expanded and restricted coverage decisions. Conclusion(s): Payers find ICER's VAF useful to inform their organization's formulary decisions. ICER's assessments often align with payers' internal assessments and are most frequently utilized for high-cost drugs or disease states. Payers indicate ICER assessments have affected both expansion and restriction in their coverage policies.Copyright © 2023

Intelligent Telework Internet Cost Requirement Modeling Using Optimizable Machine Learning Algorithms

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to the economy due to the increasing infection that affects the workforce in different sectors. The Philippine government has imposed lockdowns to control the spread of infection. This urged the different sectors to implement flexible work schedules or work from home setup. A work-from-home (WFH) setup burdens both the employee and employer by installing different equipment set-ups such as WiFi-equipped laptops, computers, tablets, or smartphones. However, the internet stability in some of the areas in the Philippines is not yet reliable. In this study, an application is used collect survey information and provide an estimate of the telework internet cost requirement of a given government employee or a given government employee implementing a work-from-home set up in their respective household. This involves survey results from different respondents who are currently on a work-from-home setup and significant factors from the survey have been analyzed using machine learning (ML) algorithms. Among the machine learning algorithms used, the ensemble bagged trees model outperformed the other ML models. This work can be extended by incorporating a wider scope of datasets from different industry doing work from home set-up. In addition, in terms of education, it is also recommended to determine the WFH set up not just with the government employee and employer but to also extend this into the education side. © 2022 IEEE.

Dual Role of Leadership in ‘Janus-Faced' Telework from Home

The ‘forced' telework from home during the pandemic changed the practices, routines, and especially the working contexts of many employees in a leadership position as leaders themselves became teleworkers in addition to those they were expected to lead. This chapter looks at the challenges and resources of working from home (WFH)-and their ambivalences-among teleworkers and teleworking leaders during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey data was collected immediately after the lockdown. From this data, two subsets were filtered. First, the responses of teleworkers (N = 228) and, second, of teleworking leaders (N = 195) were identified and analysed in regard to the ‘the most challenging' and ‘the most rewarding' issues when working from home. The study shows that telework from home is ‘Janus-faced': telework is simultaneously challenging and rewarding in several respects. In addition, teleworking leaders have a dual role, as they must both adapt to working at home as teleworkers themselves and to being leaders of homeworkers. The findings can be used for designing, organizing, performing, and leading hybrid work in the future. In this evolving ʼnew normal, ' leaders need to adapt to their dual role, learn new leadership competencies, and encourage their employees to lead themselves. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Toward an E-learning adoption: Sustainable technology used

The phenomenon that occurs in universities today is the increase in the use of e-learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the readiness of students and universities is seen as too short. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between expected benefits, e-learning curriculum, and educational partners in supporting student e-learning adoption. This study supports the sustainability of technology used in e-learning concepts. This research method is a quantitative survey of students in the city of Bandung (Indonesia) who implement e-learning as a learning medium. Data from students were taken through a questionnaire and processed using SmartPLS. The analysis was carried out using regression analysis with research hypothesis testing. The results of the study found that the expected benefits, e-learning curriculum, and educational partners have a positive relationship with the e-learning adoption of students in online learning. The E-learning curriculum is an antecedent variable that has better support for e-learning adoption. The research findings explain that e-learning adoption in universities can be built by three aspects starting from the e-learning curriculum, expected benefits, to educational partners. There is important information from this research that can be used as information support on the implementation and sustainability of online learning. E-learning organizers are expected to be able to improve the concept of e-learning, especially in the curriculum, because it has an important role to increase student e-learning adoption. © 2023 Author(s).

Rapid and Low-Cost Detection of Human Corona Virus Using MEMS ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy

The conventional methods used for the diagnostics of viral infection are either expensive and time-consuming or not accurate enough and dependent on consumable reagents. In the presence of pandemics, a fast and reagent-free solution is needed for mass screening. Recently, the diagnosis of viral infections using infrared spectroscopy has been reported as a fast and low-cost method. In this work a fast and low-cost solution for corona viral detection using infrared spectroscopy based on a compact micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) device and artificial intelligence (AI) suitable for mass deployment is presented. Among the different variants of the corona virus that can infect people, 229E is used in this study due to its low pathogeny. The MEMS ATR-FTIR device employs a 6 reflections ZnSe crystal interface working in the spectral range of 2200-7000 cm-1. The virus was propagated and maintained in a medium for long enough time then cell supernatant was collected and centrifuged. The supernatant was then transferred and titrated using plaque titration assay. Positive virus samples were prepared with a concentration of 105 PFU/mL. Positive and negative control samples were applied on the crystal surface, dried using a heating lamp and the spectrum was captured. Principal component analysis and logistic regression were used as simple AI techniques. A sensitivity of about 90 % and a specificity of about 80 % were obtained demonstrating the potential detection of the virus based on the MEMS FTIR device. © 2023 SPIE.

Health Economic Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Systematic Literature Review

Objectives: The COVID19 pandemic caused over six million deaths worldwide as of 2022 and made necessary the rapid development of vaccines. The objective of this Systematic Literature Review is to summarise the main evidence from economic evaluations of vaccines against COVID19. Method(s): Searches were conducted on PubMed on July 13th 2022. The selected papers considered COVID19 vaccination scenarios without population limits. The types of study design examined were cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses. Result(s): Overall, 16 articles from an initial list of 1842 were included in this review. Out of the 16 models, there were five Markov cohort models (three of them were combined with a decision tree model), four dynamic transmission models, three microsimulation models, three epidemiological models (without further information on the model structure) and one decision tree model. Model characteristics were considerably consistent between high-, middle- or low-income countries. Five studies considered both the healthcare and societal perspective, while seven studies reported only the former, and one only the latter. Two studied did not specify the study perspective. Ten of the studies did not consider any level of herd immunity, and no study considered cross-protection. Although eight studies used "naive" comparisons between vaccines, none of the studies conducted thorough indirect treatment comparison. All the models suggest that vaccines are cost-effective as they prevent death and transmission, and reduce the severity of cases. Although the sources of effectiveness estimates were always stated, the details of those studies were rarely reported. Nevertheless, the outcome measures and the key parameters used in the models were generally clearly stated and justified. Conclusion(s): This SLR highlights several challenges for conducting Health Economic evaluations of COVID19 vaccines. The quality of the models and their estimates suffered from the very fast pace of COVID19 research. Therefore, economic evidence on vaccination programs requires additional rigorous research.Copyright © 2023

Consortium biofertilizers to economise nutrient use and sustain productivity in cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)

Climate change events and the COVID-19 pandemic have brought to focus the significance of cassava as a supplementary food crop worldwide. However, the high yield potential of the crop necessitates timely and adequate enrichment of the soil with nutrient inputs. Consortium biofertilizers offer a viable option for reducing intensive fertilizer use to sustain soil health and productivity in cassava. The efficacy of a liquid consortium biofertilizer, specifically a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) Mix - I, in economizing nutrient use in cassava was evaluated in a 4 x 3 factorial randomized block design, replicated thrice. The treatments consisted of combinations of four levels of biofertilizers and three levels of nutrients. Biometric and yield observations were recorded, and soil properties were analyzed before and after the harvest of the crop. The results showed that the liquid biofertilizer consortium at a concentration of 5% + 75% of the recommended dose, with 37.5:37.5:75 kg NPK/ha as chemical fertilizers, recorded significantly superior tuber yield in cassava. Considering the economics, the application of the PGPR liquid formulation (5%) thrice (basal, 2 and 4 MAP) along with 37.5:37.5:75 kg NPK/ha, or at a concentration of 2% with 50:50:100 kg NPK/ha, realized higher benefit-cost ratios and can be recommended for use in cassava.

Digital literacy needs for online learning among peri-urban, marginalised youth in South Africa

As online learning modes become more common, this can exacerbate educational inequalities for learners who do not have the ability to utilise these modes effectively. This has been seen in the COVID-19 crisis where there has been a shift to remote and distance learning modalities despite the limited ability for all learners to benefit equitably. In particular, digital literacy remains a fundamental barrier to benefitting from online and blended learning. This paper reports on a study that investigated the digital literacy needs and preferences of peri-urban, marginalised youth when utilising online and blended learning in South Africa and how online education platforms can be designed to better suit such groups. It is argued that for online courses to truly support marginalised groups, it needs to be ensured that these learners are digitally equipped and digitally literate in terms of accessing, utilising, and benefitting equitably from online learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The Interplay of Perceived Risks and Benefits in Deciding to Become Vaccinated against COVID-19 While Pregnant or Breastfeeding: A Cross-Sectional Study in Italy.

The present study examined the role of the perception of risks and benefits for the mother and her babies in deciding about the COVID-19 vaccination. In this cross-sectional study, five hypotheses were tested using data from a convenience sample of Italian pregnant and/or breastfeeding women (N = 1104, July-September 2021). A logistic regression model estimated the influence of the predictors on the reported behavior, and a beta regression model was used to evaluate which factors influenced the willingness to become vaccinated among unvaccinated women. The COVID-19 vaccination overall risks/benefits tradeoff was highly predictive of both behavior and intention. Ceteris paribus, an increase in the perception of risks for the baby weighed more against vaccination than a similar increase in the perception of risks for the mother. Additionally, pregnant women resulted in being less likely (or willing) to be vaccinated in their status than breastfeeding women, but they were equally accepting of vaccination if they were not pregnant. COVID-19 risk perception predicted intention to become vaccinated, but not behavior. In conclusion, the overall risks/benefits tradeoff is key in predicting vaccination behavior and intention, but the concerns for the baby weigh more than those for the mother in the decision, shedding light on this previously neglected aspect.

Perceived a community with shared future for doctor-patient and benefit finding: a moderated mediation model.

BACKGROUND: Under the background that the concept of a community with shared future for mankind has been advocated, the doctor-patient relationship has rapidly sublimated into a community with shared future for doctor-patient. The purpose of this study was to analyze the changes and relationships of anxiety, perceived a community with shared future for doctor-patient (PCSF), health self-consciousness (HSC) and benefit finding (BF) in the outbreak stage of COVID-19 and in the stable stage of COVID-19. METHODS: The questionnaire consisted of a self-designed health self-consciousness scale, perceived a community with shared future for doctor-patient scale, revised 7-item generalized anxiety disorder scale and benefit finding scale. Questionnaires were administered in the outbreak stage of COVID-19 and in the stable stage of COVID-19 to address public anxiety, BF, and trust between medical staff and patients. RESULTS: Risk perception will increase anxiety in public, and the public who trust medical staff and the ability of the government to prevent and control the epidemic will have a higher PCSF. Compared with those in the outbreak stage of COVID-19, PCSF, HSC and BF all decreased in the stable stage of COVID-19. HSC partly plays a mediating role in the process of the influence of PCSF and BF (95% CI = [0.3785, 0.5007], [0.2357, 0.3695], P < .001). The R-value of the model in the outbreak stage of COVID-19 and in the stable stage of COVID-19 were 0.555 and 0.429, and the value of R2 was 0.308 and 0.184 respectively (P < .001). In the stable stage of COVID-19, the coefficient of anxiety ✕ PCSF is negative. The B values of anxiety and PCSF are positive, and the moderating effect is negative (P = .038). Anxiety has a negative moderating effect between PCSF and HSC, indicating that anxiety will weaken the positive impact of PCSF on HSC. It means that there exists a substitution relationship between anxiety and PCSF. CONCLUSIONS: The common goal of medical staff and patients is health, and health is the premise of the meaning of life. Vigorously advocating for PCSF can not only promote a harmonious doctor-patient relationship, but also establish a good HSC and improve the understanding of the meaning of life in the public. Furthermore, if the common concept of a community with a shared future for doctor-patient is integrated into the values of life, it may be more stable and long-term to maintain a good doctor-patient relationship. In addition, we should guard against the influence of high-level anxiety on the path of meaning perception.

The economics of the COVID-19 pandemic: economic evaluation of government mitigation and suppression policies, health system innovations, and models of care.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the scope of health economics literature, which will increasingly examine value beyond health care interventions such as government policy and broad health system innovations. Aim: The study analyzes economic evaluations and methodologies evaluating government policies suppressing or mitigating transmission and reducing COVID-19, broad health system innovations, and models of care. This can facilitate future economic evaluations and assist government and public health policy decisions during pandemics. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) was used. Methodological quality was quantified using the scoring criteria in European Journal of Health Economics, Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) 2022 Checklist and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE) Cost Benefit Analysis Checklist. PUBMED, Medline, and Google Scholar were searched from 2020-2021. Results: Cost utility analysis (CUA) and cost benefit analysis (CBA) analyzing mortality, morbidity, quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained, national income loss, and value of production effectively evaluate government policies suppressing or mitigating COVID-19 transmission, disease, and impacting national income loss. The WHO's pandemic economic framework facilitates economic evaluations of social and movement restrictions. Social return on investment (SROI) links benefits to health and broader social improvements. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can facilitate vaccine prioritization, equitable health access, and technology evaluation. Social welfare function (SWF) can account for social inequalities and population-wide policy impact. It is a generalization of CBA, and operationally, it is equal to an equity-weighted CBA. It can provide governments with a guideline for achieving the optimal distribution of income, which is vital during pandemics. Economic evaluations of broad health system innovations and care models addressing COVID-19 effectively use cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) that utilize decision trees and Monte Carlo models, and CUAs that effectively utilize decision trees and Markov models, respectively. Conclusion: These methodologies are very instructive for governments, in addition to their current use of CBA and the value of a statistical life analytical tool. CUA and CBA effectively evaluate government policies suppressing or mitigating COVID-19 transmission, disease, and impacts on national income loss. CEA and CUA effectively evaluate broad health system innovations and care models addressing COVID-19. The WHO's framework, SROI, MCDA, and SWF can also facilitate government decision-making during pandemics. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-023-01919-z.

Equity in the Pandemic Treaty: Access and Benefit-Sharing as a Policy Device or a Rhetorical Device?

Equity is a foundational concept for the new World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Treaty. WHO Member States are currently negotiating to turn this undefined concept into tangible outcomes by borrowing a policy mechanism from international environmental law: "access and benefit-sharing" (ABS).

The disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the labour market in South Korea

COVID-19 delivered distributional effects on the labour market. Therefore, policymakers concentrated on designing more efficient and effective fiscal supports to alleviate economic damages. To draw more specific pictures, this study estimates who faced harder impacts and how much they experienced economic difficulties in Korea using unconditional quantile regression and separating vulnerable sectors, such as face-to-face industries. The findings suggest that self-employed workers in the vulnerable industries at low-income percentiles presented the most severe damages. Second, self-employed workers in other sectors, temporary workers in the vulnerable industries, and low-income households also had serious impacts. Third, female workers, who have a primary child-care duty, experienced serious negative effects due to the regulation disparity between strict school closure measures and generous workplace restrictions. In this regard, financial supports should aim to target more damaged groups instead of universal benefits. Furthermore, it is also important to improve child-care services to mitigate gender inequality.

Benefit-risk assessment of Covid-19 vaccine, MRNA (MRNA-1273) for males age 18-64 years.

Since the authorization of the Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, real-world evidence has indicated its effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 cases. However, increased cases of mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis/pericarditis have been reported, predominantly in young adults and adolescents. The Food and Drug Administration conducted a benefit-risk assessment to inform the review of the Biologics License Application for use of the Moderna vaccine among individuals ages 18 and older. We modeled the benefit-risk per million individuals who receive two complete doses of the vaccine. Benefit endpoints were vaccine-preventable COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and deaths. The risk endpoints were vaccine-related myocarditis/pericarditis cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths. The analysis was conducted on the age-stratified male population due to data signals and previous work showing males to be the main risk group. We constructed six scenarios to evaluate the impact of uncertainty associated with pandemic dynamics, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against novel variants, and rates of vaccine-associated myocarditis/pericarditis cases on the model results. For our most likely scenario, we assumed the US COVID-19 incidence was for the week of December 25, 2021, with a VE of 30% against cases and 72% against hospitalization with the Omicron-dominant strain. Our source for estimating vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis rates was FDA's CBER Biologics Effectiveness and Safety (BEST) System databases. Overall, our results supported the conclusion that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks. Remarkably, we predicted vaccinating one million 18-25 year-old males would prevent 82,484 cases, 4,766 hospitalizations, 1,144 ICU admissions, and 51 deaths due to COVID-19, comparing to 128 vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis cases, 110 hospitalizations, zero ICU admissions, and zero deaths. Uncertainties in the pandemic trajectory, effectiveness of vaccine against novel variants, and vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis rate are important limitations of our analysis. Also, the model does not evaluate potential long-term adverse effects due to either COVID-19 or vaccine-attributable myocarditis/pericarditis.

COVID-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity or Challenge: Applying Psychological Distance Theory and the Co-Benefit Frame to Promote Public Support for Climate Change Mitigation on Social Media

The current study employs psychological distance theory and the co-benefit frame to explore message framing strategies on social media to promote public support in climate change mitigation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This online 2 x 2 x 2 experiment recruited 708 Chinese college students to examine the effect of temporal distance (2025 vs. 2050), spatial distance (China vs. the global), and the co-benefit frame (present vs. absent) on behavioral intentions to mitigate climate change and policy support in climate change mitigation. Unexpectedly, the MANOVA results showed that the co-benefit frame of COVID-19 and climate change did not have main or interaction that affect behavioral intention and policy support. However, close temporal distance increases support for climate change mitigation. Meanwhile, temporal and spatial distance have an interaction on behavioral intention. Our results suggest that strategies to reduce psychological distance on social media are effective, especially on temporal distance, but bonding two events through psychological distance to promote support for climate change mitigation must be reconsidered.

Study on Food Supply Chain Integration of Epidemic Outbreak Based on AHP-Fuzzy

Food is a necessity of people's life, with its unique characteristics and irreplaceability. Due to the sudden, unpredictable and destructive nature of the epidemic, countries need to take particularly strict epidemic prevention measures to manage and control the epidemic in areas with severe development of the epidemic, which affects the trans-regional transportation of food and other agricultural products, and makes food supply become mainly local supply and become a limited resource. Through the integration of food supply chain in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the service efficiency and cost can be improved, so that the community residents affected by the disaster can get high-quality food more quickly. © 2023 SPIE.

American College of Nuclear Medicine (ACNM) 2022 ACNM Annual Meeting Abstracts

The proceedings contain 91 papers. The topics discussed include: the new approach of COVID-19 patients with deteriorating respiratory functions using perfusion SPECT/CT imaging;increasing interest in nuclear medicine: evaluation of an educational workshop;cost-benefit analysis recommends further utilization of cardiac PET/MR for sarcoidosis evaluation;development of a nomogram model for predicting the recurrence of differentiated thyroid carcinoma patients based on a thyroid cancer database from a tertiary hospital in China;multi-center validation of radiomic models in new data using ComBat-based harmonization of features;bone scan with Tc99m-MDP, the missing link in the initial staging of muscle-invasive bladder carcinoma;and comparison of absorbed doses to kidneys calculated employing three time points and employing two time points in neuroendocrine patients undergoing Lu-177 DOTATATE therapy using planar images.

Application of Cloud Computing in an Education Sector through Education and Learning as a Service and its Cost Benefit Analysis

An education sector across the globe is facing numerous challenges. It is being one of the most badly affected sectors due to Covid-19. This paper presents a perspective on applying Cloud Computing technologies in the field of education at several ion levels. In addition, it proposes Education and Learning as a Service model and Decision-Making Matrix for an Organization. © 2023 IEEE.