Multiple criteria decision analysis for health care decision making—an introduction: report 1 of the ISPOR MCDA Emerging Good Practices Task Force
Open accessAbstract
Health care decisions are complex and involve confronting trade-offs between multiple, often conflicting, objectives. Using structured, explicit approaches to decisions involving multiple criteria can improve the quality of decision making and a set of techniques, known under the collective heading multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), are useful for this purpose. MCDA methods are widely used in other sectors, and recently there has been an increase in health care applications. In 2014, ISPOR established an MCDA Emerging Good Practices Task Force. It was charged with establishing a common definition for MCDA in health care decision making and developing good practice guidelines for conducting MCDA to aid health care decision making. This initial ISPOR MCDA task force report provides an introduction to MCDA - it defines MCDA; provides examples of its use in different kinds of decision making in health care (including benefit risk analysis, health technology assessment, resource allocation, portfolio decision analysis, shared patient clinician decision making and prioritizing patients' access to services); provides an overview of the principal methods of MCDA; and describes the key steps involved. Upon reviewing this report, readers should have a solid overview of MCDA methods and their potential for supporting health care decision making.
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Methods such as Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis can provide a formal means of integrating these effects with other concerns of relevance to decision makers.
“Methods such as Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis can provide a formal means of integrating these effects with other concerns of relevance to decision makers. 458”
From The Lancet Psychiatry Commission on youth mental health (2024) · cites this paper as [458]
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- Authors
- Thokala, P., Devlin, N., Marsh, K., Baltussen, R., Boysen, M., Kalo, Z., Longrenn, T., Mussen, F., Peacock, S., Watkins, J., & Ijzerman, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- Office Of Health Economics (GB)
- Radboud University Medical Center (NL)
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (GB)
- Janssen (Belgium) (BE)
- BC Cancer Agency (CA)
- University of Washington (US)
- University of Twente (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Thokala, Praveen
- ORCID
- Venue
- Value in Health
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-13
- ISSN
- 1098-3015 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2239810687
- Cited by
- 739
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 80 · 2025: 65 · 2024: 68 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 84 · 2021: 82 · 2020: 73 · 2019: 81 · 2018: 74 · 2017: 63 · 2016: 19
- FWCI
- 153.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Value in Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Twente Research Information (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Twente Research Information (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- University of Hartford
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Multi-Criteria Decision Making
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Delphi Technique in Research
- Keywords
- multi-criteria decision making, healthcare decision-making, good practice guidelines, risk-benefit assessment, health technology assessment, resource allocation, shared decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Decision Making, Decision Support Techniques, Humans, Patient Participation, Technology Assessment, Biomedical, Health Care Rationing, Practice Guidelines as Topic, Risk Assessment, Advisory Committees
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