News & events

The Health Economics and Policy Analysis research group at NUI Galway organised a very successful conference on ‘Pricing Healthcare: The role of health economics evaluation in the emerging healthcare landscape in Ireland’ in the Aula Maxima on November 4, 2014.

In any healthcare system dominated by public expenditure a critical question arises as to what healthcare should be provided. There are a host of competing demands across disease areas, across care levels, across population groups and across social classes. All of them have strong arguments that the particular intervention that they advocate should be funded. But resources are limited so the question arises as to how should a society decide on which particular elements of healthcare should be prioritized?

This was the key question addressed at the conference which was jointly organised with Novartis one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. The conference featured presentations from leading health economists in the UK and Ireland as well as contributions from the main stakeholders in the healthcare sector such as the pharmaceutical industry, clinicians, and private health insurance companies. The conference was also addressed by representatives from the key decision making agencies in Ireland in this area such as the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and the National Centre for Pharmaeconomics (NCPE).

The Health Economics and Policy Analysis research group, which comprises about twenty academics, researchers and PhD students, conducts a wide range of research and has particular expertise in disease areas such as dementia, cancer, diabetes, stroke and mental health. The group works closely with clinical researchers in the School of Medicine at NUI Galway and elsewhere and with leading health economists around the world.

For more information about the conference please contact Brendan Kennelly at brendan.kennelly@nuigalway.ie.

• Health Economics and Policy Analysis Group