In Ireland, annual spend on medicines, by the health-state payer (the Health Service Executive (HSE)), currently exceeds €2.5 billion per annum. This includes spend on medicines for chronic diseases, cancer, rare diseases, and infectious diseases. The majority of spend is on medicines for cancer (anti-neoplastic and immunomodulatory agents) and on medicines for chronic diseases (including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and arthritis).
In this research programme, our research team will determine if this state investment in high-cost medicines has provided benefit for patients. We will analyse the impact that these medicines have had on the health outcomes of patients and on healthcare service utilisation nationally.
We will do this by connecting existing national databases, to form a Data Framework, in the areas of highest spend. While historically the financial systems have provided information on overall spend, these have not been linked to patient outcomes and healthcare utilisation. Our Data Framework will bring together financial data (from the national medicines-reimbursement database (PCRS)) with health outcomes and healthcare utilisation data from the National Cancer Registry of Ireland (NCRI) and the Irish Longitudinal Study of Aging (TILDA). This information has not been directly available to decision and policy makers previously.
The Data Framework will become a permanent rich source of information that will be available to inform future national decision-making pertaining to sustainable medicines policies.
Our research team comprises analysts and academics from Trinity College Dublin, the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCRI, the TILDA and national and international collaborators. Various members of this research team hold established histories of successful research collaborations.