By Eric Barrette and Anne M. Burton
Eric Barrette is Vice President, Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) | Market Access Analytics at Medtronic. He is an active member of ASHEcon and ISPOR–The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, where he serves on the ISPOR Health Science Policy Council. We spoke about ISPOR’s mission and the opportunities it offers for ASHEcon members.
1) What is ISPOR?
ISPOR is an international, multidisciplinary organization dedicated to advancing the science of health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). Since its inception 30 years ago, ISPOR now has over 18,000 members across more than 100 countries, representing a wide array of stakeholders from academia, government, private payers, the life science industry, healthcare providers, and patient organizations. Just as ASHEcon promotes excellence in health economics research in the U.S., ISPOR’s mission is to advance HEOR excellence to improve decision making for health globally.
2) What is the difference between Health Economics and HEOR?
Health economics examines how healthcare resources are allocated, including the impacts of healthcare services and policies, the functioning of healthcare markets and financing, and how individuals and societies make decisions about health spending and health behaviors.
HEOR is the science of generating evidence to assess the value of healthcare treatments and interventions. While HEOR includes health economics methods like cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis, it also incorporates disciplines such as epidemiology, biostatistics, and outcomes research, making it broader in scope.
3) In what ways are ASHEcon and ISPOR similar?
ISPOR and ASHEcon (American Society of Health Economists) are both professional societies that support their members by sponsoring networking and collaboration opportunities. ISPOR hosts two annual conferences in North America and Europe in the spring and fall, respectively. ISPOR also has official journals, Value in Health and Value in Health Regional Issues, and an edited e-magazine, Value & Outcomes Spotlight similar to the ASHEcon newsletter. ISPOR’s and ASHEcon’s websites also include numerous resources for students, new and early career members and general references that can be used for education and teaching.
4) What are some of the key differences between ISPOR and ASHEcon?
There are two ISPOR activities that are part of ASHEcon. First, ISPOR supports member Special Interest Groups (SIG) for members who share interests in a specific topic area. With ISPOR staff support, SIG members produce peer-reviewed manuscripts, webinars, and conference presentations. For topic areas of shared interest that are not large enough to support a SIG, there are also Communities of Interest (CoI). CoIs are online forums hosted by ISPOR that allow members to interact and share resources. Examples of SIG and CoI topic areas include: Statistical Methods, Digital Health, and Real-World Evidence, and Biosimilars.
Second, ISPOR facilitates the development expert consensus guidance for HEOR through Task Forces that issue Good Practice Reports. Task force membership is comprised of global leaders in a topic area. However, all ISPOR members with knowledge and interest in a task force’s topic can participate in reviewing reports prior to publication. Report topics range from evaluating data sources (e.g., assessing electronic health data sources), analysis design (e.g., budget impact analysis), application of methods (e.g. use of machine learning), and research conduct (e.g. research study protocol development).
5) Do you see these organizations as competing with or complementing each other?
Definitely complementing each other. Many people, myself included, are members of both. And this newsletter article follows from efforts in 2024, to recognize the complementary interests of the two organizations, through an ASHEcon panel at the ISPOR conference and an ISPOR panel at the ASHEcon conference. Those sessions demonstrated there was interest on the part of members of both organizations in learning more about the other. With the rising costs of healthcare throughout the world, robust analysis to assess value and inform decision making will continue to be critical. There is a role for both health economics and HEOR to produce those analyses. And further collaboration, education, resource sharing will benefit both disciplines.
6) If ASHEcon members are interested/want to learn more about ISPOR, how can they get involved?
ISPOR membership is open to everyone and ISPOR conferences, journals, and some of their webinars are open to members and nonmembers.