Analysis and Comparisons of Qalys and Hui Interventions

¶ … QALYs and HUI interventions

QALYs as a Measure of Economic Benefits from Health Interventions

QALYs give an acceptable way to evaluate the level of the advantages obtained out of various actions concerning health and the standard of existence that the patient has and even their continued survival.

QALYs have made the distribution of the funds, which are given for various resources to be done in an open way, with those who are in charge being made aware of the advantages of incorporating and utilising new methods of treatment and advanced technology (Philips, 2009).

Challenges of using QALYs as a Measure of Economic Benefits from Health Interventions

The use of QALYs as a measure can bring about new challenges in terms of not accommodating some serious health consequences.

They are inadequate when used to gauge two drugs that are similar in most things and in competition. They cannot take in intricate details that affect the efficiency of each drug. They are also inadequate for health problems that are not serious (Philips, 2009).

The two things that are impacted by activities designed to influence health and various treatments are the length of life and fullness of that life. Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) takes these two elements into account and is calculated by multiplying the life expectancy of a person with the fullness of the years that the person has left to live, which is given by a certain measure. Thus, the health life of a person and its quality is used as a weighted measure of their remaining years. Thus, one is able to know whether the health interventions that are placed in a person's life are actually making an impact and that they are worth what they are costing. This value of the length of life has been majorly used and accepted in the health sector and it is reliable as a measure of quantity of life. When it comes to the quality of life, there are more complications because it requires looking at various elements of people's lives. For those who measure it with an emphasis on health, there are still challenges as it would encompass both mental health and physical health (Philips, 2009).

The Health Utilities Index (HUI) encompasses various measurements, including HUI1 (Mark 1), HUI2 (Mark 2) and HUI3 (Mark 3). The HUI2 and HUI3 are concentrated on in this study as they exceed the HUI1 in functionality and are founded on the same concept. In terms of the elements relating to measurement, HUI2 and HUI3 have similar properties. The HUI programs have various elements including, classification system for the health of a person, a system for scoring, questionnaires designed to collect relevant information and calculation systems in which to use algorithms applied to the collected data. HUI is widely adopted for various reasons. It is well rounded, complete, can be relied upon, has results that are easy to interpret and takes into account ill health as well as mortality. It is a system adopted in many nations for their studies, especially when trying to understand problems concerning health. The HUI system uses ten elements of health. Some bad states or negative marks reveal the morbidity considered more severe than dying. Through it, concerned parties have been able to find out that what affects a person psychologically and socially is just as significant as what affects them physically. The system describes these elements and assigns to them scores. The elements referred to as attributes are used in a way that brings out their relationships. There is a system that has two parts, morbidity measures for each attribute level and health related quality of life as measured through various levels of attributes (Furlong, Feeny, Torrance & Barr, 2001).