OBJECTIVES: Over the last decade the National Institute of Clinical Excellence in the UK has published guidelines for health technology assessments (HTA) that includes recommendations on health outcomes and cost-effectiveness assessments. In Europe, this has opened the opportunity for countries to either propose their own guidelines or use the British ones. The ECHOUTCOME project is an interdisciplinary European research platform funded by the seventh Framework Program of the European Commission with the aim of designing new European guidelines in Health Outcomes and Cost-Effectiveness assessments.
METHODS: This three years project s structured in three phases. Phase 1 aims to conduct a pan-European survey of HTA organizations and health outcomes use in the 27 European countries. Multiple correspondence and cluster analyses will be carried out to study the potential similarities and divergences across Europe. The objective of Phase 2 is to test the robustness and underIying assumptions such as reproducibility, neutrality to risk, constancy of time-trade-off rate, utility independence, etc. on QALYs, DALYs and HYEs measures. This testing will be conducted in the general population (n=300 per country) in Belgium, France, Italy and UK. Phase 3 aims to propose new approaches in Health Outcomes and Cost-Effectiveness analyses. RESULTS: The main deliverable of the ECHOUTCOME project will be new European Guidelines for assessing Health Outcomes and conducting Cost Effectiveness assessments. Of particular interest will be the recommendations on the practical usefulness of QALYs, DALYs and HYEs based on the experimental validation of their underlying assumptions.
CONCLUSIONS: The ECHOUTCOME project is the first European validation study of health outcomes measures. This work will produce guidelines for public health decision-making in the 27 European countries. The ECHOUTCOME outcomes will enhance the debate and increase the understanding that will improve Vie knowledge of existing Health Outcomes and Cost-Effectiveness techniques and will promote new approaches for decision-making.