[Contents] 1. Introduction. 2. Cost-effectiveness analysis. 3. Results. 4. Conculusion of the cost-effectiveness analysis. 6. Cost benefit analysis. 7. The contingent valuation method or "willingness to pay" (WTP). 8. Pilot study to elicit educated preferences from health care professionals for high cost antifungal drugs. 9. Results. 10. Conclusion.
At the University Hospital (CHUV), global budget put a major constraint on all departments and services. In this context, it happened that the division of infectious diseases experienced for several years important deficits in their drug budget, due to the use of systemic antifungal drugs. A cost-effectiveness analysis has been performed, in order to establish a valid policy about the use of available antifungal drugs. During the cost-effectiveness evaluation, the discussions with the medical and nursing team showed that they had clear drug preferences. Therefore, the author was interested in investigating the problem of drug preferences and their impact on drug choices. In a pilot study , he used the willingness to pay (WTP) method to show the possibilities and limits of this method as a tool for evaluating educated preferences of health care professionals. This study, will, after an introductory part, present both the cost-effectiveness analysis and the cost-benefit analysis, which was based on the results of the previous study.