; for the International Consortium for End-of-Life Research (ICELR) IMPORTANCE Differences in utilization and costs of end-of-life care among developed countries are of considerable policy interest. OBJECTIVE To compare site of death, health care utilization, and hospital expenditures in 7 countries: Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Retrospective cohort study using administrative and registry data from 2010. Participants were decedents older than 65 years who died with cancer. Secondary analyses included decedents of any age, decedents older than 65 years with lung cancer, and decedents older than 65 years in the United States and Germany from 2012. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Deaths in acute care hospitals, 3 inpatient measures (hospitalizations in acute care hospitals, admissions to intensive care units, and emergency department visits), 1 outpatient measure (chemotherapy episodes), and hospital expenditures paid by insurers (commercial or governmental) during the 180-day and 30-day periods before death. Expenditures were derived from country-specific methods for costing inpatient services. RESULTS The United States (cohort of decedents aged >65 years, N = 211 816) and the Netherlands (N = 7216) had the lowest proportion of decedents die in acute care hospitals (22.2.% and 29.4%, respectively). A higher proportion of decedents died in acute care hospitals in Belgium (N = 21 054; 51.2%), Canada (N = 20 818; 52.1%), England (N = 97 099; 41.7%), Germany (N = 24 434; 38.3%), and Norway (N = 6636; 44.7%). In the last 180 days of life, 40.3% of US decedents had an intensive care unit admission compared with less than 18% in other reporting nations. In the last 180 days of life, mean per capita hospital expenditures were higher in Canada

Background. Expansion of routine genetic testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer from conventional BRCA testing to a multigene test could improve diagnostic yield and increase the opportunity for cancer prevention in both identified carriers and their relatives. We use an economic decision model to assess whether the current knowledge on non-BRCA mutation prevalence, cancer risk, and patient preferences justifies switching to a multigene panel for testing of early-onset breast cancer patients. Methods. We evaluated routine testing by BRCA testing, a 7-gene panel, and a 14-gene panel using individual-level simulations of annual health state transitions over a lifetime perspective. Breast and ovarian cancer incidence is reduced and posttreatment survival is improved when high-risk mutations are detected and risk-reducing treatment offered. Most model inputs were synthesized from published literature. Intermediate health outcomes included breast and ovarian cancer incidence rates, along with organ-specific cancer mortality. Cost-effectiveness outcomes were health sector costs and quality-adjusted life years. Results. Intermediate health outcomes improved by testing with multigene panels. At a cost-effectiveness threshold of $77,000, a 7-gene panel test with five non-BRCA genes was the optimal strategy with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $53,310 per quality-adjusted life year compared to BRCA-only testing. Limitations. Unable to stratify carriers to specific mutations within genes, we can only make predictions on the gene level, with combined risk estimates for known variants. As mutation prevalence is the absolute upper bound of returns to more expansive testing, the rarity of modelled mutations makes analysis outcomes sensitive to model implementation. Conclusions. A 7-gene panel to diagnose hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in early-onset breast cancer patients can be a cost-effective alternative to current BRCA-only testing in Norway.

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Health systems worldwide struggle to meet increasing demands for health care, and Norway is no exception. This paper discusses the new, comprehensive framework for priority setting recently laid out by the third Norwegian Committee on Priority Setting in the Health Sector. The framework posits that priority setting should pursue the goal of "the greatest number of healthy life years for all, fairly distributed" and centres on three criteria: 1) The health-benefit criterion: The priority of an intervention increases with the expected health benefit (and other relevant welfare benefits) from the intervention; 2) The resource criterion: The priority of an intervention increases, the less resources it requires; and 3) The health-loss criterion: The priority of an intervention increases with the expected lifetime health loss of the beneficiary in the absence of such an intervention. Cost-effectiveness plays a central role in this framework, but only alongside the health-loss criterion which incorporates a special concern for the worse off and promotes fairness. In line with this, cost-effectiveness thresholds are differentiated according to health loss. Concrete implementation tools and open processes with user participation complement the three criteria. Informed by the proposal, the Ministry of Health and Care Services is preparing a report to the Parliament, with the aim of reaching political consensus on a new priority-setting framework for Norway.

SUMMARYThe objective of this study was to compare healthcare performance for the surgical treatment of hip fractures across and within Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, and Sweden. Differences in age-adjusted and sexadjusted 30-day and one-year all-cause mortality rates following hip fracture, as well as the length of stay of the first hospital episode in acute care and during a follow up of 365 days, were investigated, and associations between selected country-level and regional-level factors with mortality and length of stay were assessed.Hungary showed the highest one-year mortality rate (mean 39.7%) and the lowest length of stay in one year (12.7 days), whereas Italy had the lowest one-year mortality rate (mean 19.1 %) and the highest length of stay (23.3 days). The observed variations were largely explained by country-specific effects rather than by regional-level factors. The results show that there should still be room for efficiency gains in the acute treatment of hip fracture, and clinicians, healthcare managers, and politicians should learn from best practices. This study demonstrates that an international comparison of acute hospital care is possible using pooled individual-level administrative data.

Rationale, aims, and objective: Telemedicine applications, such as a mobile radiography service, provide a new way of organizing healthcare services. In order to provide safe and personalised care for nursing home residents during X-ray examinations, mobile radiography services have been implemented. The objective of this study was to analyse the costs of X-ray examinations and treatments for nursing home residents when comparing hospital-based imaging with a combination of hospital-based imaging and a mobile radiography service in Southeast Norway.Methods: A decision model was developed using the software TreeAge Pro. The model included two alternatives: the mobile radiography service in combination with hospital-based imaging and hospital-based imaging alone. The treatment needed based on the examination results could be given either in the nursing home or at the hospital. Probabilities and costs in the model were derived from previous research, various reports, and hospital data from the Southeast region of Norway.Monte Carlo simulations of 1000 residents were run through the model, and statistical analyses were applied.Results: The analysis showed a mean cost of €2790 per resident for the hospitalbased service alone. For mobile and hospital-based services combined, the mean cost was €1946 per resident, including examinations and the immediate treatment given. This difference in costs was significant (p < 0.001). Conclusion:A mobile radiography service in nursing homes provides a safe, high quality health care service. The result of this study showed there was a 30% costreduction by implementing the mobile radiography service

on behalf of the GALAXY ConsortiumBaCKgRoUND aND aIMS: Alcohol-related liver disease is often undetected until irreversible late-stage decompensated disease manifests. Consequently, there is an unmet need for effective and economically reasonable pathways to screen for advanced alcohol-related fibrosis. appRoaCH aND ReSUltS: We used real-world data from a large biopsy-controlled study of excessive drinkers recruited from primary and secondary care, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of four primary care initiated strategies:(1) routine liver function tests with follow-up ultrasonography for test-positives, (2) the enhanced liver fibrosis (ELF) test with hospital liver stiffness measurement (LSM) for positives, (3) a three-tier strategy using the Forns Index to control before strategy 2, and (4) direct referral of all to LSM. We used linked decision trees and Markov models to evaluate outcomes short term (cost-per-accurate diagnosis) and long term (quality-adjusted life-years [QALYs]). For lowprevalence populations, ELF with LSM follow-up was most cost-effective, both short term (accuracy 96%, $196 per patient) and long term (incremental cost-effectiveness ratio [ICER] $5,387-$8,430/QALY), depending on whether diagnostic testing had lasting or temporary effects on abstinence rates. Adding Forns Index decreased costs to $72 per patient and accuracy to 95%. The strategy resulted in fewer QALYs due to more false negatives but an ICER of $3,012, making this strategy suited for areas with restricted access to ELF and transient elastography or lower willingness-to-pay. For high-prevalence populations, direct referral to LSM was highly cost-effective (accuracy 93%, $297 per patient), with ICERs between $490 and $1,037/QALY. CoNClUSIoNS:Noninvasive screening for advanced alcoholrelated fibrosis is a cost-effective intervention when different referral pathways are used according to the prevalence of advanced fibrosis. Patients in the primary health care sector should be tested with the ELF test followed by LSM if the test was positive, whereas direct referral to LSM is highly cost-effective in high-prevalence cohorts. (Hepatology

Normative thinking about addiction has traditionally been divided between, on the one hand, a medical model which sees addiction as a disease characterized by compulsive and relapsing drug use over which the addict has little or no control and, on the other, a moral model which sees addiction as a choice characterized by voluntary behavior under the control of the addict. Proponents of the former appeal to evidence showing that regular consumption of drugs causes persistent changes in the brain structures and functions known to be involved in the motivation of behavior. On this evidence, it is often concluded that becoming addicted involves a transition from voluntary, chosen drug use to non-voluntary compulsive drug use. Against this view, proponents of the moral model provide ample evidence that addictive drug use involves voluntary chosen behavior. In this article we argue that although they are right about something, both views are mistaken. We present a third model that neither rules out the view of addictive drug use as compulsive, nor that it involves voluntary chosen behavior.