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£/QALY Health Economics Metrics

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United Kingdom Government Digital Service
United Kingdom National Health Service England For Patients
United Kingdom National Health Service England For Practitioners
United Kingdom National Health Service Scotland For Patients
United Kingdom National Health Service Scotland For Practitioners
United Kingdom National Health Service Wales For Patients
United Kingdom National Health Service Wales For Practitioners
United States Web Design System

Economic reasoning foundations

Opportunity cost
Discounting and time preference
Analysis perspective
Time horizon
Marginal vs average cost
Cash-releasing vs non-cash-releasing savings
Sensitivity analysis
Probabilistic sensitivity analysis
Expected value of perfect information
Dominance and the efficiency frontier

Outcome measures

Quality-adjusted life year (QALY)
Disability-adjusted life year (DALY)
EQ-5D
Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER)
Willingness-to-pay thresholds
Net monetary benefit (NMB)
Life-years gained
Health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE)
QALY shortfall and severity modifiers

Economic analysis types

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA)
Cost-utility analysis (CUA)
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
Cost-minimization analysis (CMA)
Cost-consequence analysis (CCA)
Budget impact analysis (BIA)
Return on investment (ROI)
Social return on investment (SROI)

Health system operational economics

Bed days saved
Length of stay
Readmission rate
Did-not-attend (DNA) rate
Emergency attendance avoidance
National tariff and unit costs
Referral to treatment (RTT)
Waiting list impact
Practitioner time
Workforce retention
Avoidable outsourcing costs
Downstream resource optimization
Earlier intervention
Value-generating capacity (operational turnaround)
Hard cash-releasing savings (deficit defense)

HTA frameworks and prevention economics

Health technology assessment (HTA)
NICE Evidence Standards Framework
Germany's DiGA fast-track
Number needed to treat (NNT)
Prevention economics
Screening economics
Avoided downstream costs

Software engineering and digital delivery

Cost of delay
DORA metrics
Flow metrics
WSJF and CD3
SPACE and DevEx
Technical debt
Total cost of ownership (TCO)
Cloud unit economics (FinOps)
Build vs buy
Benefits realization
GDS service metrics

AI acceleration

AI developer productivity
AI return on investment
Inference unit economics
AI quality metrics
Clinical AI evaluation
AI regulatory evaluation

Consumer health apps and devices

Engagement metrics
Retention and churn
Activation and uptake
Adherence and persistence
Patient-reported outcomes
Digital endpoints and biomarkers
Wearable validation
Remote patient monitoring economics
Health app unit economics
Reach and equity

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Health Economics Metrics — health economics math, examples, and reasoning for software engineers building for national health services.

Figures in this book date quickly. Each topic dates its benchmarks in-line; re-verify before using any number in a live business case.

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