Now Available: Modeling Good Research Practices' Guidelines for Modeling in Health Care Research

Seven new reports that will have a significant impact on modeling techniques in health care research and medical decision making have been released by SAGE and The Society for Medical Decision Making. Written by the Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force, a special group of leading experts in decision analysis, economics, simulation, and health policy, these reports were published in a special issue of Medical Decision Making (MDM), a SAGE journal.

"The history of decision and economic modeling to support health policy is riddled with missed opportunities and political grandstanding as well as legitimate concerns about transparency and conflict of interest," stated MDM editor Mark Helfand. "These new reports were created by an international panel as comprehensive guidance for designing, implementing, and validating model-based studies to inform health care decision making."

The reports published in this issue offer guidance for creating modeling studies for health outcomes research that can inform health care decisions. In order to ensure that these new guidelines are consistent with current modeling techniques, the Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force was created, which is comprised of members from the Society for Medical Decision Making and the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.

"This series of seven papers presents the updated recommendations for best practices in conceptualizing models; implementing state–transition approaches, discrete event simulations, or dynamic transmission models; dealing with uncertainty; and validating and reporting models transparently," wrote authors J. Jaime Caro, et al., authors of the issue's introduction.

The reports from this task force were rigorously peer-reviewed and published in the new issue of MDM. Each of the seven new studies, as well as the three related editorials, have been made free and open to the public for a limited time. You can access them by clicking he links below:

• "Modeling Good Research Practices--Overview: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force" by J. Jaime Caro, Andrew H. Briggs, Uwe Siebert, and Karen M. Kuntz
  
  
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• "Conceptualizing a Model: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force" by Mark Roberts, Louise B. Russell, A. David Paltiel, Michael Chambers, Phil McEwan, and Murray Krahn
  
  
• "State-Transition Modeling: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force" by Uwe Siebert, Oguzhan Alagoz, Ahmed M. Bayoumi, Beate Jahn, Douglas K. Owens, David J. Cohen, and Karen M. Kuntz
  
  
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• "Modeling Using Discrete Event Simulation: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force" by Jonathan Karnon, James Stahl, Alan Brennan, J. Jaime Caro, Javier Mar, and Jorgen Moller
  
  
• "Dynamic Transmission Modeling: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force Working Group" by Richard Pitman, David Fisman, Gregory S. Zaric, Maarten Postma, Mirjam Kretzschmar, John Edmunds, and Marc Brisson
  
  
• "Model Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force Working Group" by Andrew H. Briggs, Milton C. Weinstein, Elisabeth A. L.Fenwick, Jonathan Karnon, Mark J. Sculpher, and A. David Paltiel
  
  
• "Model Transparency and Validation: A Report of the ISPOR-SMDM Modeling Good Research PracticesTask Force" by David M. Eddy, William Hollingworth, J. Jaime Caro, Joel Tsevat, Kathryn M. McDonald, and John B
  
  

Editorials

• "Building Better Models: If We Build Them, Will Policy Makers Use Them? Toward Integrating Modeling into Health Care Decisions" by Jeanne Mandelblatt, Clyde Schechter, David Levy, Ann Zauber, Yaojen Chang, and Ruth Etzioni
  
  
• "Transparently, with Validation" by Nancy Neil http://mdm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/full/32/5/660?etoc
• "Transparency and Reproducible Research in Modeling: Why We Need It and How to Get There" by Crystal M. Smith-Spangler
  
  

Source-Eurekalert