Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis

Thokala P, Devlin N, Marsh K, Baltussen R, Boysen M, Kalo Z, Longrenn T, Mussen F, Peacock S, Watkins J, Ijzerman M.
Value in Health. 2016;19(1):1-13.

ABSTRACT

Health care decisions are complex and involve confronting trade-offs between multiple, often conflicting, objectives. Using structured, explicit approaches to decisions involving multiple criteria can improve the quality of decision making and a set of techniques, known under the collective heading multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), are useful for this purpose. MCDA methods are widely used in other sectors, and recently there has been an increase in health care applications. In 2014, ISPOR established an MCDA Emerging Good Practices Task Force. It was charged with establishing a common definition for MCDA in health care decision making and developing good practice guidelines for conducting MCDA to aid health care decision making. This initial ISPOR MCDA task force report provides an introduction to MCDA - it defines MCDA; provides examples of its use in different kinds of decision making in health care (including benefit risk analysis, health technology assessment, resource allocation, portfolio decision analysis, shared patient clinician decision making and prioritizing patients’ access to services); provides an overview of the principal methods of MCDA; and describes the key steps involved. Upon reviewing this report, readers should have a solid overview of MCDA methods and their potential for supporting health care decision making.

Marsh K, IJzerman M, Thokala P, Baltussen R, Boysen M, Kaló Z, Lönngren T, Mussen F, Peacock S, Watkins J, Devlin N.
Value in Health. 2016;19(2):125-137.

ABSTRACT

Health care decisions are complex and involve confronting trade-offs between multiple, often conflicting objectives. Using structured, explicit approaches to decisions involving multiple criteria can improve the quality of decision making. A set of techniques, known under the collective heading, multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), are useful for this purpose. In 2014, ISPOR established an Emerging Good Practices Task Force. The task force’s first report defined MCDA, provided examples of its use in health care, described the key steps, and provided an overview of the principal methods of MCDA. This second task force report provides emerging good-practice guidance on the implementation of MCDA to support health care decisions. The report includes: a checklist to support the design, implementation and review of an MCDA; guidance to support the implementation of the checklist; the order in which the steps should be implemented; illustrates how to incorporate budget constraints into an MCDA; provides an overview of the skills and resources, including available software, required to implement MCDA; and future research directions.

Baltussen R, Paul M, Jansen P, Bijilmakers L, Grutters J, Kluytmans A, Reuzel RP, Tummers M, van der Wilt GJ.
Value in Health. 2017;20(2):256-260.

ABSTRACT

Priority setting in health care has been long recognized as an intrinsically complex and value-laden process. Yet, health technology assessment agencies (HTAs) presently employ value assessment frameworks that are ill fitted to capture the range and diversity of stakeholder values and thereby risk compromising the legitimacy of their recommendations. We propose “evidence-informed deliberative processes” as an alternative framework with the aim to enhance this legitimacy. This framework integrates two increasingly popular and complementary frameworks for priority setting: multicriteria decision analysis and accountability for reasonableness. Evidence-informed deliberative processes are, on one hand, based on early, continued stakeholder deliberation to learn about the importance of relevant social values. On the other hand, they are based on rational decision-making through evidence-informed evaluation of the identified values. The framework has important implications for how HTA agencies should ideally organize their processes. First, HTA agencies should take the responsibility of organizing stakeholder involvement. Second, agencies are advised to integrate their assessment and appraisal phases, allowing for the timely collection of evidence on values that are considered relevant. Third, HTA agencies should subject their decision-making criteria to public scrutiny. Fourth, agencies are advised to use a checklist of potentially relevant criteria and to provide argumentation for how each criterion affected the recommendation. Fifth, HTA agencies must publish their argumentation and install options for appeal. The framework should not be considered a blueprint for HTA agencies but rather an aspirational goal—agencies can take incremental steps toward achieving this goal.

Phelps CE, Madhavan G.
Value in Health. 2017;20(2):251-255.

ABSTRACT

Practitioners of cost-utility analysis know that their models omit several important factors that often affect real-world decisions about health care options. Furthermore, cost-utility analyses typically reflect only single perspectives (e.g., individual, business, and societal), further limiting the value for those with different perspectives (patients, providers, payers, producers, and planners—the 5Ps). We discuss how models based on multicriteria analyses, which look at problems from many perspectives, can fill this void. Each of the 5Ps can use multicriteria analyses in different ways to aid their decisions. Each perspective may lead to different value measures and outcomes, whereas no single-metric approach (such as cost-utility analysis) can satisfy all these stakeholders. All stakeholders have unique ways to measure value, even if assessing the same health intervention. We illustrate the benefits of this approach by comparing the value of five different hypothetical treatment choices for five hypothetical patients with cancer, each with different preference structures. Nine attributes describe each treatment option. We add a brief discussion regarding the use of these approaches in group-based decisions. We urge that methods to value health interventions embrace the multicriteria approaches that we discuss, because these approaches 1) increase transparency about the decision process, 2) allow flight simulator-type evaluation of alternative interventions before actual investment or deployment, 3) help focus efforts to improve data in an efficient manner, 4) at least in some cases help facilitate decision convergence among stakeholders with differing perspectives, and 5) help avoid potential cognitive errors known to impair intuitive judgments.

Marsh KD, Sculpher M, Caro JJ, Tervonen T.
Value in Health.2017;21(4):394-397.

ABSTRACT

The potential for multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to support health technology assessment (HTA) has been much discussed, and various HTA agencies are piloting or applying MCDA. Alongside these developments, good practice guidelines for the application of MCDA in health care have been developed. An assessment of current applications of MCDA to HTA in light of good practice guidelines reveals, however, that many have methodologic flaws that undermine their usefulness. Three challenges are considered: the use of additive models, a lack of connection between criteria scales and weights, and the use of MCDA in economic evaluation. More attention needs to be paid to MCDA good practice by researchers, journal editors, and decision makers and further methodologic developments are required if MCDA is to achieve its potential to support HTA.