Session Details

PM04: Introduction to Multi Criteria Decision Analysis in Health Care

(Event: SMDM 40th Annual Meeting: Montreal, QC, Canada)

Oct 14, 2018 2:00PM - Oct 14, 2018 5:30PM

Session Type: Short Course- PM 1/2 Day

Description

Background

Health care decisions are complex and involve confronting trade-offs between multiple, often conflicting, objectives. Using structured, explicit approaches to eliciting stakeholder preferences can help in supporting decision making. This is reflected in the recent growth in the use of, for instance, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to support health care decisions. The demand for these methods in healthcare has never been higher, however, there are two key challenges. First, there are many preference elicitation methods available. Is qualitative, quantitative, or a mixed method appropriate? If a quantitative approach is preferred, should a choice-based method or an MCDA weight elicitation method be used? Second, good practice guidance on implementing preference elicitation methods is still emerging. Guidelines have recently been published to support the application of MCDA in healthcare, but exercise with and advances in MCDA methods continues.

Course Type

Half Day

Course Level

Beginner

Format Requirements

The course will involve a mixture of seminars, hands on exercises, and group discussions. At the start of each section the instructor will describe core concepts using a seminar format. These will be followed by exercises during which these concepts will be applied. Each section will conclude with a discussion of core concepts, and a reiteration of key learnings. Attendees will not be expected to have knowledge of preference elicitation methods but should have a basic knowledge of evidence-based medicine and medical decision making.

Overview

By the end of the course, participants will understand: a) how multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is being used to inform health care decisions; b) the preference elicitation methods that are available for MCDA and their pros/cons; c) good research practice when implementing MCDA methods.

Description & Objectives

The course will be structured in three parts:

Introduction to MCDA: What is it and how is it being used? We will provide a definition of MCDA; illustrate some of the common methods used to elicit preferences and the outputs generated; and present an overview of how these outputs are being used to support decision making, including benefit-risk assessment (BRA), health technology assessment (HTA), and shared decision making (SDM). This section will conclude with an exercise in which participants will generate decision relevant outputs from preference data.
Choosing an appropriate preference elicitation method. We will present a typology of preference elicitation methods, identifying key differences, including theoretical foundations; discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each methods; and in what contexts different methods are appropriate. The section will conclude with an exercise in which participants will be asked to provide their own preferences using a few methods to understand the pros/cons of different methods and to identify the key issues when choosing an appropriate method for a given research problem.
Implementing MCDA: Good practice guidelines. We will present the common steps involved in MCDA: definition of the decision problem; selecting and structuring criteria; measuring performance; preference elicitation and analysis; calculating decision relevant outputs; uncertainty analysis; reporting and interpretation of findings. Each step will include a summary of good research practices, based on the most recently published good practice guidelines. The section will involve critically appraising a published study and the participants can choose between different types of preference elicitation studies.

Course Director

Praveen Thokala
- University of Sheffield

Session Fees

	Fee Type	Member Fee	Non-Member Fee
This session is free
	Early:	$200.00	$325.00
	Regular:	$245.00	$370.00
	Late:	$245.00	$370.00
This session is free
	Early:	$170.00	$170.00
	Regular:	$215.00	$215.00
	Late:	$215.00	$215.00