Measuring the Level of Severity in Pharmacoeconomic Analyses

Economic evaluations are increasingly being used to inform decision makers regarding the allocation of scarce health care resources. In reimbursement applications to the Norwegian Drug Reimbursement Scheme the cost-utility analysis (CUA) is a common feature, expressing the cost-effectiveness of a treatment. Norwegian Medicines Agency (NoMA), which administers the scheme, is interested in supplementing the existing dossier with measurements of the conditions severity level. During their work on revising the pharmacoeconomic guidelines they identified a lack of empirical studies concerning severity measures. The objective is to find out how to operationalize severity measurements in a Norwegian context and investigate the implications of the included severity measures; providing a contribution to the discussion of severity level in Norway.