Examples of Case Studies
Technomics Research Initiates Academic Collaboration to Meet Client Need for Economic Data
A client company had completed a randomized clinical trial and wanted a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). The goal of the CEA was to compare patient outcomes and cost for three interventions: the client’s treatment, standard surgical treatment, and standard medical treatment.
Technomics Research was engaged to develop a Markov model CEA, which would include success rates and costs of the three treatments. The client’s trial was a source for the client’s treatment success rate. The plan was to obtain success rates for the standard treatments from the literature, but journal articles on a comparable patient population were lacking.
Technomics Research discovered and approached an academic researcher with a similar patient population who agreed to collaborate on the study. The client, the academic, and Technomics Research worked together to produce an evidence-based CEA which resulted in a publication.
Aberrant Trial Results Overcome by Bayes Analysis
A client company had several successful trials of their new cardiac product when a new trial turned up negative results. Healthcare providers questioned the validity of the older studies based on the new results.
Principal Statistician, Teresa Nelson, MS, performed a Bayesian meta-analysis of the company’s trials plus other publications in the literature to show that the new results were simply random variation and did not affect the overall conclusions about the effectiveness of the device. The paper was published and successfully addressed the providers’ issues (see our Publications page).
Company Made Medical Device That Decreased The Rate Of Infections in Traumatic Wounds
A company made a medical device that, in a randomized clinical trial, decreased the rate of infections in traumatic wounds treated in the emergency department.
The hospital buyers objected to the cost of the device. Dr. Martinson developed a pro forma which demonstrated that in uninsured patients, the device was cost-saving because it prevented additional hospital losses that would have occurred if infections had developed in these patients. The company reported that it enjoyed good adoption in hospitals serving populations with high uninsurance rates.
New Drug Developed to Treat Diabetic Wounds
A pharmaceutical start-up developed a new drug to treat infected diabetic wounds and wanted to understand how the product could be rationally priced. Dr. Martinson developed a value-based pricing model which demonstrated that the drug would be valued at a relatively high price because it would avert wound complications that would have cost more money than the drug.
Therapy for Incontinence Equally Effective and Less Costly Than Competitive Therapies
A medical device manufacturer developed a therapy for incontinence that was equally effective and less costly compared to a competitive therapy. In spite of this, insurers were sometimes reluctant to cover it.
Dr. Martinson developed a Markov model showing the cost-effectiveness of the company’s device compared to the competition. A paper from this study is under publication review, which the company believes will be received favorably by insurers.
New Cardiac Arrhythmia Therapy Saves Retreatment Costs
A company made a medical device to treat heart arrhythmias using a novel method of rendering problematic tissue inactive. The new technology was more expensive for the hospital to purchase.
Dr. Martinson constructed an economic model to compare the costs of the standard and new technologies that included the purchase price, the cost of re-do procedures, and the cost of complications. The reduction in re-do procedures and complications with the new technology more than offset the additional purchase price at a moderate volume of procedures.
The company’s account executives were able to use this information in their discussions with hospital purchasing directors.
Disease Management Program Gets Heart Patients on Medication
A large pharmaceutical company developed a new antilipemic drug – one that helps control blood lipids – and offered a coronary-artery-disease-management program to managed care organizations (MCOs) that positioned the drug favorably on their formulary. The program consisted of mailings to the MCO’s physicians regarding the physicians’ patients who might benefit from an antilipemic drug, and to patients regarding the benefits of antilipemic therapy. MCOs questioned the effectiveness of the program.
Dr. Martinson compared the drug utilization of health plans that used the program to those that did not, including the change in utilization in the months following program adoption. The results showed that members in plans with the program were almost 3 times as likely to take the drugs as those in comparable plans without the program, and that 94% of the members who took the drugs continued taking them after 6 months. The company was successful in convincing the MCO to continue the program and position the drug favorably on the formulary.
