Measuring Value in the Provision of Lower-Limb Prostheses

Abstract

As modern health care systems transition from fee-for-service to fee-for-value structures, it is increasingly relevant for the field of prosthetic rehabilitation to understand modern economic science. Health care economics can be approached through a range of analyses in which the costs of health care services are compared against subsequent cost savings, consequences observed with the intervention, the effectiveness of the intervention with regard to a range of outcomes valued by the patient, payer, and provider, or widely used global utility measures. Although examples of economic science are limited in current prosthetic literature, available examples are cited to describe various approaches to economic analysis. An understanding of economic science clarifies the need for the continued identification, creation, and adoption of outcome measures sensitive enough to discriminate between prosthetic interventions and valued collectively by patients, payers, and providers. Future clinical trials should collect and report upon the associated costs as well as meaningful outcome measures to expand the current body of economic evidence in the prosthetic literature.