ABSTRACT
DISCLOSURES: No funding was required for this project. The authors are or have been members of the Format Executive Committee.
Subject(s)
Documentation/standards , Evidence-Based Medicine/standards , Managed Care Programs/standards , Pharmacopoeias as Topic/standards , Societies, Pharmaceutical/standards , Decision Making, Organizational , Drug Costs/standards , Evidence-Based Medicine/economics , Evidence-Based Medicine/organization & administration , Managed Care Programs/economics , Managed Care Programs/organization & administration , Off-Label Use/economics , Off-Label Use/standards , United StatesABSTRACT
An important question for managed care organizations is whether insomnia is associated with increased consumption of healthcare resources. Even though a large number of adults complain of insomnia, few actually receive a diagnostic code for the condition. Consequently, it has been challenging to consistently measure both direct medical costs and indirect costs attributable to insomnia. Recent data have provided a clearer picture showing that insomnia is a costly medical condition. This paper summarizes current understanding of the prevalence of insomnia and explores its impact on health-related quality of life, workplace productivity, and healthcare resource utilization.
Subject(s)
Managed Care Programs/economics , Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders/economics , Efficiency , Health Services/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Quality of Life , Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders/epidemiology , United States/epidemiologyABSTRACT
The increasing prominence of drug therapies in health care and their rapidly rising costs have led to a dramatic escalation of interest in the use of outcomes data for therapeutics and formulary decisions. The expanded use of formulary submission dossiers, effectiveness data, health outcomes analysis, and pharmacoeconomic modeling has created an urgent need for outcomes research to investigate topics especially relevant for health plan drug therapy coverage decisions. This article examines the evolving use of outcomes data on drug formulary and other therapeutic decisions, and outlines several priority areas for outcomes research. These include research into surrogate measures of long-term health and economic outcomes, evaluations of new formulary submission programs, and research on the impact of pharmaceutical cost-sharing arrangements on health outcomes. The article also discusses the importance of evaluating patient compliance and health outcomes after implementation of a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the need for new types of clinical trials that can respond to changing demands of pharmacy and therapeutics committees and providers
