Efficient patient-level health economic modelling in Excel without VBA: A Tutorial
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Cohort-level models in Microsoft Excel® remain the standard for cost-effectiveness modelling to inform health technology assessment (HTA), despite calls and rationale for more flexible approaches. Their limited ability to capture patient-level characteristics can, in the presence of patient heterogeneity or the need to track patient characteristics to accurately capture a technology’s implications, introduce bias. Their continued prevalence is explained by key stakeholders’ familiarity with spreadsheet software, and the lower computational burden of cohort-level versus patient-level models. However, contemporary Excel functions have opened up possibilities for efficient calculations within native Excel that enable more flexible, patient-level approaches to be implemented in familiar spreadsheet-based software. Therefore, this tutorial aims to provide step-by-step guidance on how to implement a previously published and freely available individual-level discrete event simulation (DES) in Excel, using contemporary Excel functions and without any Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code.
Key Points for Decision-Makers
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Perceived and real requirements for cost-effectiveness models for HTA to be built in Excel may have led to overuse of cohort-level approaches, with probable bias implications for HTA decision-making.
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Contemporary Excel functions now allow the efficient implementation and execution of patient-level model calculations within native Excel, without any VBA code. Such capabilities may reduce technical barriers across key stakeholders, enhance transparency, and ultimately lead to improvements in HTA decision-making.
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This tutorial demonstrates provides step-by-step guidance on how to implement an efficient patient-level cost-effectiveness model in Excel without any VBA, with an executable model example included as supplementary material.
