Development of a Transparent Interactive Decision Interrogator to Facilitate the Decision-Making Process in Health Care

• Published in: Value in health 2011-07, Vol.14 (5), p.768-776
• Main Authors: Bujkiewicz, Sylwia, PhD, Jones, Hayley E., PhD, Lai, Monica C.W., MSc, Cooper, Nicola J., PhD, Hawkins, Neil, PhD, Squires, Hazel, MSc, Abrams, Keith R., PhD, Spiegelhalter, David J., PhD, Sutton, Alex J., PhD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arthritis, Psoriatic - drug therapy; Arthritis, Psoriatic - economics; Arthritis, Psoriatic - immunology; Bias; bias adjustment; Computer Graphics; Cost-Benefit Analysis; decision model; Decision Support Techniques; Drug Costs; Evidence-Based Medicine - economics; Evidence-Based Medicine - statistics & numerical data; Fetus - immunology; Health Policy Analysis; Health Services Research; Humans; Immunosuppressive Agents - economics; Immunosuppressive Agents - therapeutic use; interactive; Internal Medicine; meta-analysis; Models, Economic; Models, Statistical; Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care) - economics; Prenatal Diagnosis - economics; RExcel; Rh Isoimmunization - diagnosis; Rh Isoimmunization - economics; Rh Isoimmunization - immunology; Rh Isoimmunization - prevention & control; Rh-Hr Blood-Group System - immunology; Rho(D) Immune Globulin - economics; Rho(D) Immune Globulin - therapeutic use; Software; Technology Assessment, Biomedical - economics; Technology Assessment, Biomedical - statistics & numerical data; TIDI; Treatment Outcome; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha - antagonists & inhibitors; Uncertainty; United Kingdom; User-Computer Interface
• ISSN: 1098-3015; 1524-4733
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jval.2010.12.002

Abstract Background Decisions about the use of new technologies in health care are often based on complex economic models. Decision makers frequently make informal judgments about evidence, uncertainty, and the assumptions that underpin these models. Objectives Transparent interactive decision interrogator (TIDI) facilitates more formal critique of decision models by decision makers such as members of appraisal committees of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK. By allowing them to run advanced statistical models under different scenarios in real time, TIDI can make the decision process more efficient and transparent, while avoiding limitations on pre-prepared analysis. Methods TIDI, programmed in Visual Basic for applications within Excel, provides an interface for controlling all components of a decision model developed in the appropriate software (e.g., meta-analysis in WinBUGS and the decision model in R) by linking software packages using RExcel and R2WinBUGS. TIDI's graphical controls allow the user to modify assumptions and to run the decision model, and results are returned to an Excel spreadsheet. A tool displaying tornado plots helps to evaluate the influence of individual parameters on the model outcomes, and an interactive meta-analysis module allows the user to select any combination of available studies, explore the impact of bias adjustment, and view results using forest plots. We demonstrate TIDI using an example of a decision model in antenatal care. Conclusion Use of TIDI during the NICE appraisal of tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors (in psoriatic arthritis) successfully demonstrated its ability to facilitate critiques of the decision models by decision makers.