Systematic review, meta-analysis and economic modelling of ...

DOI: 10.3310/hta17010 Health Technology Assessment 2013 Vol. 17 No. 1Francis Morris and Jason Kendall are leading experts in the emergency management of chest pain and ACS.They are respectively members of the NICE Guideline Development Groups for acute chest pain and ACS.David Newby is a leading academic cardiologist with research interest in the management of suspectedACS. He was vice chair for the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline on themanagement of acute coronary syndromes.Paul Collinson is a leading international expert in cardiac biomarkers. He acted as expert advisor on cardiacbiomarkers to the NICE Guideline Development Groups on acute chest pain and on heart failure.Steven Thomas is a clinical senior lecturer in Cardiovascular Radiology. As a Cardiovascular Radiologist hehas clinical expertise in using CT coronary angiography in a range of clinical settings. He has previouslycollaborated with the Health Economics and Decision Science unit at ScHARR on a number of projects,including a HTA funded assessment of carotid stenosis, with collaborators in Edinburgh, and a HTA fundedproject evaluating diagnostic tests in DVT. He has also been involved in assessment of the cost-effectivenessof treatment in abdominal aortic aneurysm for a recent NICE appraisal, with the Centre for HealthEconomics at York.Service users:Enid Hirst is a member of the public who has previously provided and facilitated patient representationfor evaluations led by SG. She established a Cardiac User Group for our recent evaluation of theNational Infarct Angioplasty Project (NIAP). This group helped to develop the research plans, guided thedevelopment of patient and carer interview schedules, and reviewed the outputs of the project.The opportunities for user involvement in this project are inevitably limited by the reliance upon secondarydata sources. However, we plan to ask Enid and members of the NIAP Cardiac User Group to review theoutputs from the project. We will present our findings to members of the User Group in order to identifyways of communicating our findings to the public and explore the potential acceptability of differentstrategies to patients.Justification of support required:The Project Manager (grade 7, 100% for 15 months) will undertake the survey, manage the literaturesearches, supervise quality assessment of selected papers, assist with meta-analysis and cost-effectivenessanalysis, write reports and disseminate findings. An experienced full-time Project Manager for the durationof the project is crucial to success.The Clerical Assistant (grade 4, 50% for 15 months) will assist with the survey, literature searches,photocopying, preparing papers and data management.MS (Operational Researcher, 40% for 9 months) will undertake the decision analysis modelling andcost-effectiveness analysis.SD (Health Economist, 20% for 6 months) will provide health economic expertise and assistance with QALYestimation and obtaining unit costs.SG (Principal Investigator, 10% for 15 months) will supervise the Project Manager, co-ordinate the projectand oversee all project planning, analysis and report writing.JS (Statistician, 20% for 6 months) will undertake data synthesis.© Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO 2013. This work was produced by Goodacre et al. under the terms of a commissioning contract issued by the Secretary of Statefor Health. This issue may be freely reproduced for the purposes of private research and study and extracts (or indeed, the full report) may be included in professional journalsprovided that suitable acknowledgement is made and the reproduction is not associated with any form of advertising. Applications for commercial reproduction should beaddressed to: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton SciencePark, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK.185