Eliciting expert opinion for use in health technology assessment

Projects:
In HTA, probabilistic decision modelling has helped to better define the uncertainty associated with policy decisions. When relevant evidence (e.g. from RCTs, observational studies, routine data) does not yet exist to inform a part of the model, or is unlikely to ever exist (such as for rare diseases), expert opinion is often sought. By eliciting subjective probability distributions from experts uncertainty associated with their opinion is captured. Since elicitation of expert opinion involves a number of assumptions, it is important that a formal methodological approach is used to capture it. Bogdan Grigore is undertaking a CLAHRC-funded PhD exploring the use of formal methods for the elicitation of expert opinion in HTA and evaluating the impact of different elicitation methods. Part of the PhD is a systematic review of reports of the use of expert elicitation in HTA which has found that the majority of reports lack detail on aspects of the elicitation process used.

Publications:
Grigore, B., Peters, J., Hyde, C., Stein, K. Methods to Elicit Probability Distributions from Experts: A Systematic Review of Reported Practice in Health Technology Assessment. Pharmacoeconomics. 2013; 31(11): 991-1003. Abstract

People involved: Bogdan Grigore, Jaime Peters, Ken Stein, Chris Hyde