Assessing the value of cardiac biomarkers: going beyond diagnostic accuracy?

ABSTRACT

In this era of scrutinized resource utilization, providers and payers are focused on the value of healthcare interventions more than ever. Cost-effectiveness evaluations are required by some health authorities and requested by others in order to guide budget allocation decisions. In the past, these evaluations did not methodologically consider laboratory diagnostics. We set out to explore the current requirements of health technology agencies that include laboratory diagnostics and describe, through a review of the literature, alternative methods for establishing the value of a biomarker or labroatory diagnostic beyond assay specifications and performance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the current use of a linked evidence approach in cost-effectiveness studies for cardiac laboratory tests in the last 5 years.