Abstract:
Today's cost-sensitive healthcare environment has created a
competitive and challenging workplace for clinicians. Competition for
diminishing resources has necessitated that the appraisal of healthcare goods
and services extends beyond evaluations of safety and efficacy and
considers the economic impact of these goods and services on the cost of
healthcare. A challenge for healthcare professionals is to provide quality
patient care while assuring an efficient use of resources. Defining
the value of medicine is a common thread that unites today's healthcare
practitioners. With serious concerns about rising medication costs and
consistent pressure to decrease pharmacy expenditures and budgets,
clinicians/prescribers, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals must answer the question, “What is the value of the pharmaceutical goods and
services I provide?” Pharmacoeconomics, or the discipline of placing a
value on drug therapy, evolved to answer that question.
