Coauthorship and institutional collaborations on cost-effectiveness analyses: a systematic network analysis.

• Main Authors: Ferrán Catalá-López, Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent, Manuel Ridao, Máxima Bolaños, Anna García-Altés, Gabriel Sanfélix-Gimeno, Salvador Peiró
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/22666435/?tool=EBI

<h4>Background</h4>Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) has been promoted as an important research methodology for determining the efficiency of healthcare technology and guiding medical decision-making. Our aim was to characterize the collaborative patterns of CEA conducted over the past two decades in Spain.<h4>Methods and findings</h4>A systematic analysis was carried out with the information obtained through an updated comprehensive literature review and from reports of health technology assessment agencies. We identified CEAs with outcomes expressed as a time-based summary measure of population health (e.g. quality-adjusted life-years or disability-adjusted life-years), conducted in Spain and published between 1989 and 2011. Networks of coauthorship and institutional collaboration were produced using PAJEK software. One-hundred and thirty-one papers were analyzed, in which 526 authors and 230 institutions participated. The overall signatures per paper index was 5.4. Six major groups (one with 14 members, three with 7 members and two with 6 members) were identified. The most prolific authors were generally affiliated with the private-for-profit sector (e.g. consulting firms and the pharmaceutical industry). The private-for-profit sector maintains profuse collaborative networks including public hospitals and academia. Collaboration within the public sector (e.g. healthcare administration and primary care) was weak and fragmented.<h4>Conclusions</h4>This empirical analysis reflects critical practices among collaborative networks that contributed substantially to the production of CEA, raises challenges for redesigning future policies and provides a framework for similar analyses in other regions.