Overview and Analysis of the Cost of Drug Programs in Poland: Public Payer Expenditures and Coverage of Cancer and Non-Neoplastic Diseases Related Drug Therapies from 2015-2018 Years.

Background: In Poland drug programmes developed by the Minister of Health and financed by the National Health Fund are special reimbursement frameworks of innovative, expensive, and mostly hospital based medical products used for a small number of patients.

Research Design: The research presented in this paper is based on data analysis published by the National Health Fund in Poland. The analysis focused on estimating public payer expenditure on drugs available within drug programmes from 2015 to 2018.

The direct and indirect costs of epilepsy in Poland estimates for 2014-2016 years.

Background: According to the current data, around 1% of the Poland population have epilepsy, which comprises about 400,000 people. This group of patients requires life-long therapy including both drug therapy and hospitalization. The character of the epilepsy has a significant impact on the expenses borne by individual patients, and the prevalence of the disease has a significant impact on the health care system.

Cost-effectiveness of radial vs. femoral approach in primary percutaneous coronary intervention in STEMI - Randomized, control trial.

Introduction And Objectives: Primary percutaneous coronary intervention infarction became the preferred method of treatment for myocardial ST segment elevation. Improved safety was reported in transradial access (radial) compared to transfemoral access (femoral). The aim of this study was to compare the cost between the two access points in ST segment elevation myocardial infarction.

Health outcomes and economic consequences of using angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in comparison with angiotensin receptor blockers in the treatment of arterial hypertension in the contemporary Polish setting.

Background: Arterial hypertension (AH) represents a public health problem in Poland, firstly due to the huge, still growing population of patients (10.45 million patients based on NATPOL 2011 and PolSenior Surveys), and secondly because of the substantial cost of reimbursement from the National Health Fund (NHF). The most commonly used drugs in the treatment of AH include angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), the latter being associated with significantly higher unit reimbursement cost.

[Cost of lost productivity in pharmacoeconomics analysis. Part II. Survey in the expert group].

The aim of the survey was to collect data on practice and preferences of decision-makers and experts in health economics concerning the role of indirect costs in Poland. The questionnaire contained 18 questions covering the need for indirect costs calculation in economic evaluations and measures used to calculate indirect cost. Fifty four respondents related to health economics returned completed questionnaires.

[Cost of lost productivity in pharmacoeconomics analysis. Part I. A systematic review of the literature].

The inclusion of indirect costs of illness in economic studies is still a subject of considerable debate. The aim of the systematic literature review was to present the Polish economic practice concerning indirect costs evaluation of healthcare interventions. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Polish Medical Bibliography (PBL) were searched.

Self-assessed health status in Poland: EQ-5D findings from the Polish valuation study.

Introduction: There are no population norms currently available in Poland for any generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire for adults.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the health status of a representative sample of the general Polish population using the EQ-5D questionnaire.

Material And Methods: Adult subjects who were visiting patients in 8 medical centers in Warsaw, Skierniewice, and Puławy, were inter viewed during the Polish EQ-5D valuation study.

[Indirect costs in health technology assessment].

In the health technology assessment it is crucial to define the perspective of the analysis. When the societal perspective is chosen it is necessary to include all the costs incurred by the society, also the costs of lost productivity resulting from absence of sick employees from work or their reduced efficiency at work. The aim of this article is to present the notion of indirect costs, their importance in health technology assessment and the methods of calculation.

Valuation of EQ-5D health states in Poland: first TTO-based social value set in Central and Eastern Europe.

Objective: Currently, there is no EQ-5D value set for Poland. The primary objective of this study was to elicit EQ-5D Polish values using the time trade-off (TTO) method.

Methods: Face-to-face interviews with visitors of inpatients in eight medical centers in Warsaw, Skierniewice, and Puławy were carried out by trained interviewers.