Economic Evaluation Service

Through its Economic Evaluation Service, the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery offers clinicians and investigators specialized services to conduct analyses on health care utilization and costs using a variety of health economics and econometric methodologies.

In the current health care fiscal environment, measuring health outcomes alone is no longer enough to demonstrate the value of an intervention. Researchers must also show that the expected benefits of a new agent, technology or any other health intervention are worth the costs.

To do so, they need formal economic evaluations, which are a group of analytic methods that quantify and compare the benefits — prevented disability, improved quality of life and so on — and costs of medical interventions. The Economic Evaluation Service team can assist with studies that need economic evaluations.

Areas of focus

The Economic Evaluation Service offers a wide array of economic evaluation services under the broader theme of comparative effectiveness research. The faculty members and analysts in the Economic Evaluation Service team are well-trained and have many years of experience conducting a variety of comparative effectiveness research studies, including but not limited to health care utilization and costs analyses, clinical outcomes analyses, and cost-effectiveness analyses.

Examples of how the center's Economic Evaluation Service enhances research include:

  • Analyses paired with prospective clinical trials
  • Retrospective analyses of prior clinical studies
  • Retrospective and prospective observational studies
  • Economic analyses based on publicly available data sources
  • Analyses using models based solely on information from the literature

The Economic Evaluation Service is a charge-out resource available to researchers from all areas of health care and health care delivery, both within and external to Mayo Clinic.

Begin by reviewing the service's pre-consultation checklist. Then, email Mayo Clinic's Economic Evaluation Service at ees@mayo.edu to request a consultation.

Read about key projects below, or review publications on PubMed resulting from the Economic Evaluation Service team's efforts.

Projects

The Economic Evaluation Service conducts analyses on economic costs and health care resource utilization using a variety of health economics methodologies.

Some of the team's key projects are described here:

Cost Data Warehouse

The Cost Data Warehouse (must be logged in to the Mayo Clinic network) can help Mayo Clinic researchers standardize the way they identify, calculate and report costs of different practice innovations. It uses Medicare fee schedules and cost reports as a baseline. The underlying algorithm can adjust for inflation, making it continuously relevant down to the service-line level.

Using standardized costs prevents inadvertent release of business-sensitive information, while saving substantial effort for researchers who would otherwise need to create something new for each project.

Related publication:

Teleneonatology

Mayo Clinic has developed a teleneonatology program to bring neonatology expertise to the bedside of any newborn in need of critical care, regardless of birth location. This innovative program allows neonatologists to immediately advise care teams in community hospitals using a real-time audio-video telemedicine connection. The Economic Evaluation Service contributed to this initiative by assessing its cost-effectiveness.

The program allows Mayo Clinic to bridge the gaps in care often found in rural or other underserved communities.

Related publication:

Preoperative anemia

Many patients proceed to elective surgery with significant untreated anemia. This can raise the risk of the need for a donor (allogeneic) blood transfusion during surgery, which carries additional risks. Previously, Mayo Clinic did not have a formal program for preoperative anemia evaluation and treatment.

A multidisciplinary team from the center's Health Services and Outcomes Research Program worked with Mayo Clinic's Patient Blood Management team to pilot and evaluate a preoperative anemia clinic, and the Economic Evaluation Service provided economic analysis.

The pilot included evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of anemia in adult patients scheduled for elective cardiac surgery, with the goals of correcting anemia, reducing perioperative transfusion utilization and improving patient outcomes.

Patient-reported outcomes showed improved hemoglobin levels and satisfaction with the process, and the associated economic analysis indicated that the intervention is cost neutral. As a result, the pilot led to implementation across a variety of surgical specialities.

Telehealth cancer care

In another collaborative project, team members from the Economic Evaluation Services are working to accelerate development, implementation and evaluation of virtual care, telehealth and artificial intelligence-enabled solutions for Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Related publications:

Contact

Bijan J. Borah, Ph.D.