Scale of the intervention

This section presents some defining factors to consider when conducting a heath economic evaluation and will help you to understand the scale of the intervention. The scale of the intervention will influence the best approach for the economic evaluation.  

Priority          

Is the intervention aligned with a local or national priority?

Timeline        

What is the timeline for the implementation project?

Population Impact   

What proportion of the population will be impacted by the innovation?

Existing data or research    

Is there a large volume of existing data or research already available that is relevant to the innovation?

Environmental considerations       

Are there additional environmental considerations to intervention?

Population/Region size

How many providers/sites are involved in the evaluation?

Implementation stage          

Have previous trials of the intervention been conducted?

Different factors will influence the scale of the project; evaluations including a large population and a large number of participating sites will likely be a large-scale evaluation for example.

Example: Small scale 6-month project

This type of evaluation may be more appropriate for an early-stage intervention. A cost benefit analysis approach may be suitable to understand whether the benefits of the intervention outweigh the costs using a combination of any previous trial data or literature. The analysis will include financial benefits and social benefits.

Example: Large scale 12-month project

This type of evaluation may be suitable for an intervention that has already been trialled at a smaller scale. It should be ensured prior to the roll out that there are sufficient resources to support the modelling. Robust data collection methods should be explored to ascertain what data can be collected from the participating sites and what data will be reliant on literature. A budget impact modelling approach may be more suitable as the results can be used to highlight to commissioners their potential return on investment based on their given demographic and assumptions.