Living HTA: Automating Health Economic Evaluation with R

<ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Background:</ns4:bold> Requiring access to sensitive data can be a significant obstacle for the development of health models in the Health Economics & Outcomes Research (HEOR) setting. We demonstrate how health economic evaluation can be conducted with minimal transfer of data between parties, while automating reporting as new information becomes available. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Methods:</ns4:bold> We developed an automated analysis and reporting pipeline for health economic modelling and made the source code openly available on a GitHub repository. The pipeline consists of three parts: An economic model is constructed by the <ns4:italic>consultant</ns4:italic> using pseudo data. On the data-owner side, an application programming interface (API) is hosted on a server. This API hosts all sensitive data, so that data does not have to be provided to the <ns4:italic>consultant</ns4:italic> . An automated workflow is created, which calls the API, retrieves results, and generates a report. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Results:</ns4:bold> The application of modern data science tools and practices allows analyses of data without the need for direct access – negating the need to send sensitive data. In addition, the entire workflow can be largely automated: the analysis can be scheduled to run at defined time points (e.g. monthly), or when triggered by an event (e.g. an update to the underlying data or model code); results can be generated automatically and then be exported into a report. Documents no longer need to be revised manually. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Conclusions:</ns4:bold> This example demonstrates that it is possible, within a HEOR setting, to separate the health economic model from the data, and automate the main steps of the analysis pipeline. </ns4:p>