CADTH Lecture Series 

CADTH is hosting a series of lectures by prominent scholars and opinion leaders to share their perspective on some of the most pressing issues facing health technology assessment (HTA) and health care today.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Judging the Gift from the Box: Reflections on the Power and Significance of Bernie O’Brien’s “Power and Significance” 

A decade ago, Canada lost one of its most influential experts in health technology assessment (HTA). Professor Bernie O’Brien is remembered for his research contributions in areas including outcome valuation, decision modelling, statistical methods in economic evaluation, and applied cost-effectiveness studies. He was also an excellent communicator and teacher. In this talk, Dr. Jeffrey Hoch will review one of Bernie’s academic contributions, highlighting main points and demonstrating their relevance today.

O’Brien et al.’s 1994 article, “In search of power and significance: Issues in the design and analysis of stochastic cost-effectiveness studies in health care,” introduced researchers to “the feasibility and desirability of constructing statistical tests of economic hypotheses and estimation of cost-effectiveness ratios with associated 95% confidence intervals.” This was an important point in the history of HTA. While economic evaluations were abundant at that time, statistical procedures for assessing uncertainty were virtually non-existent. This presentation will review insights from the challenges of characterizing uncertainty in economic evaluation. The research discussed in Bernie’s seminal 1994 paper is an important foundation upon which modern methods of characterizing uncertainty in economic evaluation are built. This talk marks the anniversary of Bernie’s passing with an appreciation of a remarkable article by a remarkable man.

Date:        Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Time:        1:00 pm to 2:30 pm (EDT)
Location:  2nd Floor Council Chambers, 865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario

There is no fee to participate but registration is required.