R for trial and model-based cost-effectiveness analysis: short course

Background and objectives

It is our pleasure to announce a workshop and training event on the use of R for trial and model-based cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). This follows our successful workshop on R for CEA in 2018.

Our event will begin with a half-day short course on R for decision trees and Markov models and the use of the BCEA package for graphical and statistical analysis of results; this will be delivered by Gianluca Baio of UCL and Howard Thom of Bristol University.

This will be followed by a one-day workshop in which we will present a wide variety of technical aspects by experts from academia, industry, and government institutions (including NICE). Topics will include decision trees, Markov models, discrete event simulation, integration of network meta-analysis, extrapolation of survival curves, and development of R packages.

We will include a pre-workshop virtual code challenge on a problem set by our scientific committee. This will take place over Github and a Slack channel with participants encouraged to submit final R code solutions for peer review on efficiency, flexibility, elegance and transparency. Prizes will be provided for the best entry.

Participants are also invited to submit abstracts for potential oral presentations. An optional dinner and networking event will be held on the evening of 8th July.

Registration is open until 1 June 2019 at https://onlinestore.ucl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-mathematical-physical-sciences-c06/department-of-statistical-science-f61/f61-short-course-on-r-for-decision-trees-markov-models-the-use-of-bcea

Preliminary Programme

Day 1: Introduction to R for Cost-Effectiveness Modelling. Monday 8th July.

• 13:00-13:15. Howard Thom. Welcome and introductions
• 13:15-13:45. Howard Thom. Building a decision tree in R
• 13:45-14:15. Gianluca Baio. Using BCEA to summarise outputs of an economic model
• 14:15-14:45. Practical 1 (Decision trees)
• 14:45-15:00. Coffee break
• 15:00-15:45. Howard Thom. R for building Markov models
• 15:45-16:15. Gianluca Baio. Further use of BCEA
• 16:15-17:00. Practical 2 (Markov models)