Can health economics aid decision making in healthcare innovation in academia?

Health economics is extensively used by reimbursement agencies to make decisions on whether to adopt new medical technologies. It is also used by the healthcare industry as an aid to decision making during product development. This paper proposes that academic healthcare technology transfer could also benefit from adopting health economics. The study investigated the knowledge and attitudes of academic staff involved in developing and transferring healthcare technologies. The participants had little or no prior knowledge of health economics; however, the majority reported that this method had the potential to aid development and commercialisation. The innovations developed by the workshop attendees and their commercialisation plans were of a type that could potentially benefit from cost-effectiveness calculations. Health economics has the potential to make valuable contribution to academic healthcare innovation. Research is required to develop this method further and ensure that it can be successfully applied in academia