A Comprehensive View of the Methods Used to Measure the Societal Impact of Healthcare Interventions: A Systematic Review.

Abstract

Objectives: This study summarizes the concepts that have been used to date to demonstrate societal impact of healthcare interventions and establish an analytical framework to comprehensively organize and describe the different elements of societal impact.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review following Cochrane and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We searched MEDLINE and Embase, gray literature from ISPOR and Value Balancing Alliance websites, and the reference lists of the identified systematic reviews. Eligible studies assessed the societal impact and described a specific approach. For each included study, we extracted relevant characteristics, such as disease area, methodology, and societal impact metrics.

Results: From a pool of 12 525 studies, 159 were included. Studies broadly examined the societal impact of an intervention at the patients, caregivers, healthcare organizations, and the societal level. Within those categories, we identified a total of 42 different concepts of societal value. We presented a frequency count of those concepts in a hierarchical framework and analyzed the studies qualitatively. We also assessed the literature against the ISPOR value flower.

Conclusions: Our findings reveal recurrent themes and highlight the demand for methodological harmonization. While addressing the limitations of the studied literature from a decision-making perspective, we propose a consensus-driven path forward. Through our research, we emphasize the importance of refining the existing methods, the need for developing a standardized reporting format for future studies, and the importance of developing concise definitions for subjective concepts for societal impact of healthcare interventions.