Economic Evaluations of Health Care Interventions in Pediatric Hospital Care

The hospital medicine movement thrives in a health care environment committed to providing high-quality, safe, and value-based care. Hospitalists and hospitals continually grapple with many decisions regarding adopting new interventions and deadopting established ones. These decisions span the gamut from tests, treatments, and supportive care, to care models. Traditionally, the choice to adopt one intervention over another is commonly thought of in terms of its direct impact on patient outcomes, benefits, and harms. However, the evolving landscape of health care, characterized by increasing constraints on resources necessitates a broader perspective, one that includes a thorough consideration of the economic implications. The goal is not to minimize costs but rather to maximize value, outcomes achieved for money spent. Economic evaluations of health care interventions can provide this information by quantifying value and assisting health care providers, hospitals, and health systems in deciding which intervention to adopt. Economic evaluations deal with both inputs (ie, costs) and outputs (ie, consequences). Few economic evaluations in pediatric hospital medicine have been published, and many clinicians are unfamiliar with them. This paper discusses the economic evaluation of health care interventions with special attention to the pediatric hospitalist and hospital care. The paper aims to give readers an understanding of the key concepts underlying economic evaluations.