David Bin-Chia Wu

Global economic burden of schizophrenia: a systematic review

Background Schizophrenia is one of the top 25 leading causes of disability worldwide in 2013. Despite its low prevalence, its health, social, and economic burden has been tremendous, not only for patients but also for families, caregivers, and the wider society. The magnitude of disease burden investigated in an economic burden study is an important source to policymakers in decision making. This study aims to systematically identify studies focusing on the economic burden of schizophrenia, describe the methods and data sources used, and summarize the findings of economic burden of schizophrenia. Methods A systematic review was performed for economic burden studies in schizophrenia using four electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and EconLit) from inception to August 31, 2014. Results A total of 56 articles were included in this review. More than 80% of the studies were conducted in high-income countries. Most studies had undertaken a retrospective- and prevalence-based study design. The bottom-up approach was commonly employed to determine cost, while human capital method was used for indirect cost estimation. Database and literature were the most commonly used data sources in cost estimation in high-income countries, while chart review and interview were the main data sources in low and middle-income countries. Annual costs for the schizophrenia population in the country ranged from US

Perceptually lossless medical image coding

94 million to US

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Taiwan: A Transmission Dynamic Modeling Approach

102 billion. Indirect costs contributed to 50%–85% of the total costs associated with schizophrenia. The economic burden of schizophrenia was estimated to range from 0.02% to 1.65% of the gross domestic product. Conclusion The enormous economic burden in schizophrenia is suggestive of the inadequate provision of health care services to these patients. An informed decision is achievable with the increasing recognition among public and policymakers that schizophrenia is burdensome. This results in better resource allocation and the development of policy-oriented research for this highly disabling yet under-recognized mental health disease.

Economic evaluation of universal 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination in Taiwan: A cost-effectiveness analysis

A novel perceptually lossless coder is presented for the compression of medical images. Built on the JPEG 2000 coding framework, the heart of the proposed coder is a visual pruning function, embedded with an advanced human vision model to identify and to remove visually insignificant/irrelevant information. The proposed coder offers the advantages of simplicity and modularity with bit-stream compliance. Current results have shown superior compression ratio gains over that of its information lossless counterparts without any visible distortion. In addition, a case study consisting of 31 medical experts has shown that no perceivable difference of statistical significance exists between the original images and the images compressed by the proposed coder.

Cost Effectiveness of Pneumococcal Vaccination in Children in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVES Streptococcus pneumoniae causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Static pharmacoeconomic models have been used to conduct pharmacoeconomic analyses of pediatric pneumococcal conjugate vaccination programs. The objective of this study was to develop a transmission dynamic model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in Taiwan. METHODS An age-structured transmission dynamic model was populated with parameters from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database and publicly available sources to evaluate the clinical and economic impact of PCV13. Sensitivity analyses were performed to explore model uncertainties. RESULTS In the base-case analysis, four-dose scheduled universal infant PCV13 vaccination will prevent 5112 cases of invasive pneumococcal diseases, 535,607 cases of all-cause hospitalized pneumonia, 726,986 cases of acute otitis media, and 420 deaths over a 10-year time horizon since 2009. The four-dose vaccination program is estimated to yield an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US

Cost-effectiveness analysis of infant universal routine pneumococcal vaccination in Malaysia and Hong Kong

38,045 and US

The Health Economic Impact of Universal Infant Vaccination with the 10-Valent Pneumococcal Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae Protein D Conjugate Vaccine as Compared with 13-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Hong Kong

18,299 from payer and societal perspectives. One-way sensitivity analyses indicated that the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio is most sensitive to vaccine price. The 95% confidence interval of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was US

Visually lossless adaptive compression for medical images with JPEG 2000

10,186 to US

Cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmacogenetic-guided warfarin dosing in Thailand

34,563 by multivariate probabilistic sensitivity analyses in the societal perspective. CONCLUSIONS With a World Health Organization-recommended cost-effectiveness threshold, the PCV13 vaccination program would be cost-effective in Taiwan. To circumvent the lack of long-term real data, a transmission dynamic model is informative to decision makers on evaluating the long-term cost-effectiveness of PCV13.

The Impact of Outliers on Net-Benefit Regression Model in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Pneumococcal diseases caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae can lead to significant morbidity and mortality in young infants and the elderly. The seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) has been available on the private market in Taiwan since October 2005. To date, there has not been any cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of PCV7 in Taiwan. A pharmacoeconomic model populated with local parameters is needed for vaccine decision-making. The aim of the study was to provide a CEA of PCV7 in Taiwan and explore the impact of herd effect and indirect cost on the findings of CEA. METHODS A decision analytic model was populated with local epidemiological and economic data to simulate the expected clinical and economic outcomes from a hypothetical vaccinated birth cohort of 191,310 infants compared to no vaccination over a 10-year time horizon. To explore the impact of herd effect, results were presented with and without herd effect. Moreover, the study was conducted from both payer and societal perspectives to examine the impact of indirect cost. One-way sensitivity analyses were performed to evaluate model robustness. The cost-effectiveness of a reduced three-dose schedule was also estimated. RESULTS PCV7 vaccination could prevent 1281 cases of invasive pneumococcal diseases, 178,145 cases of all-cause hospitalized pneumonia, 69,962 cases of all-cause acute otitis media, and 981 deaths over a 10-year time horizon. The vaccination program with an annual cost of NT