Simulating healthcare quality innovation based on a novel medical treatment: The case of Hepatitis-C in Europe

- Healing rates and treatment costs of Hepatitis C virus rise in the short term.
- A long term decrease in Hepatitis C patients leads to less new infections.
- Long term savings can be expected due to this.
- Decision makers should seek for a broad application of new medication.
- Policies must strive for a targeted provision for drug addicts and prisoners.

In 2014, a novel medication for treating Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections caused severe difficulties for European decision makers in the public medical sector. Even though new drugs cure HCV in nearly all cases, related costs in the short run are extremely high. Thus, the estimation of overall costs for the national healthcare systems was of great importance for profound far-reaching decisions on policies regarding the medication and their reimbursement. As this budget estimation is extremely difficult due to the complexity of the virus spread and the existence of further discomforts that lead to additional costs, a new microsimulation model was developed that considers the problem from an individual's perspective and finally aggregates numbers on the macro level. While developing the model, general insights into the cost burden due to the new medication for the next 3 years were generated. Using the introduced model, a decision maker is able to test for impact of one financial unit in several policies in order to maximize the overall benefit for the healthcare system. As initial results imply the need to change current reimbursement strategies in Europe, further research demand is discussed at the end of this article.