ProgrammE in Costing, resource use measurement and outcome valuation for Use in multisectoral National and International health economic evaluAtions (PECUNIA)

PECUNIA aims to establish standardised costing and outcome assessment measures for optimised national healthcare provision in the European Union.

Rapidly ageing societies, growing populations and new health technologies have dramatically increased EU healthcare costs: Between 1972 and 2010, public health expenditure has risen from 4.5% to 8% of national income across the EU. Especially long-term and multi-morbidities as well as mental health diseases pose a major financial burden to European healthcare systems.

PECUNIA aims to tackle this challenge by developing new standardised, harmonised and validated methods for the assessment of costs and outcomes of healthcare interventions within and across European countries.

The methods and tools to be developed within PECUNIA will be used to enhance efficient and evidence-based collaborative care models and inter-sectoral funding arrangements to improve chronic and mental health care in all EU health systems.

PECUNIA will primarily address the unnecessary variations in the input cost and (health) outcome data of economic evaluations which limit the comparability, transferability and applicability of cost-effectiveness results within and across countries. It will address the scarcity of internationally standardised, generic tools for the assessment of both costs and outcomes focusing on the lack of harmonised multi-sectoral, multi-national and multi-person resource use measurement (RUM) instrument, harmonised reference unit cost information, and outcome assessment tools in the form of cross-national health utility value sets and guidance on broader wellbeing assessment, across many EU countries.

More information:  www.pecunia-project.eu