Join us for the 2011 Annual Lecture

The 2011 OHE Annual Lecture — Cost per QALY in the U.S. and Britain: Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t? — will be presented by Prof Milton Weinstein of Harvard University on 15 November 2011 in London. He will examine the differences in the US and British perspectives and argue for a convergence that combines the two approaches.

Policies and public attitudes toward the use of cost-effectiveness analysis in the U.S. and Britain continue to be very different.  This year’s annual lecture, entitled ‘Cost per QALY in the U.S. and Britain: Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t?’, will be presented by Professor Milton Weinstein.  He will examine the differences in the US and British perspectives, including the rather naïve assumptions that underpin them. Prof Weinstein will argue for a convergence that combines the British emphasis on informing choice by collecting evidence about costs, effects and outcomes with the US recognition that value is heterogeneous, not absolute, and that formal analysis cannot remove all uncertainty for decision makers.

Professor Weinstein is the Henry J. Kaiser Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard University School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Program on Economic Evaluation of Medical Technology. He is best known for his research on cost-effectiveness of medical practices and for developing methods of economic evaluation and decision analysis in health care.

The Annual Lecture will be held at 6:00 PM on 15 November 2011 at the Royal College of Physicians in London and be followed by a drinks reception.