Course: Simulation for HTA 2025

SHORT COURSE: Simulation for HTA

 Date: 24-28 March 2025*

*There will be an hour online assessment on 5 April 2025

Time: 9am – 530pm (SGT)
Format: In-person
Venue: MD1 Tahir Foundation Building, National University of Singapore

Course outline

This course will equip students with the conceptual understanding and technical skills to design and construct simulations relevant to health technology assessment (HTA).

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:

  • Understand what a simulation is, how and when to use it within its limitations
  • Select and apply the appropriate probability distributions to describe patient trajectories in a healthcare simulation
  • Implement these distributions in a coherent structure
  • Validate the resulting simulations
  • Analyze scenarios, report results and interpret them
Click here for the course schedule

Pre-requisites

  • Prior experience with conducting economic evaluation
  • Laptops must have the latest version of working Microsoft Excel (Windows or Mac) and be able to run Excel macros

Course instructors

Jaime Caro

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

Honorary Visiting Professor, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore 

Dr Caro is Chief Scientist at Evidera where he advances Evidera’s leadership in developing and applying novel techniques in modeling, health economics, comparative effectiveness, epidemiology, and outcomes research. Dr. Caro is also adjunct Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University, and Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics. He also lends his teaching ability to other academic institutions such as Thomas Jefferson University School of Population Health and Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.

Dr. Caro continues to pioneer new methodologies. In an effort to provide an alternative to the well-known cost per QALY technique and avoid many of the latter’s problems, he is working on a broader approach to valuing health benefits. He is also further developing DICE, the unified approach to health economic modeling that he has created. Working with health technology assessment agencies and academic groups, he is formalizing this innovation to enable rapid, standardized and less error-prone development of decision-analytic model. On behalf of the German health technology assessment agency, he proposed an innovative approach to the assessment of health technologies, involving the efficiency frontier. As part of his work with governments, he has helped the World Bank Institute and the InterAmerican Court for Human Rights address the growing problem of Supreme Courts overriding health care system decisions and ordering them to provide treatments that had been considered unwarranted. After leading the Quality Assurance for Modeling Studies Task Force, jointly sponsored by ISPOR, Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy and the National Pharmaceutical Council, and the ISPOR-SMDM Good Modeling Practices Task Force, endorsed by the Society for Medical Decision Making, Dr. Caro was recently named co-chair of the ISPOR Science and Research Committee and has been awarded the Marilyn Dix Smith Leadership Award.

Jörgen Möller

Vice President, EVIDERA

Honorary Visiting Associate Professor, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore

Jörgen specializes in simulating complex systems and played a key role in simulating the re-design of the Swedish national postal distribution system, the extension of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, and the utilization of surgical theatres at Eskilstuna Hospital. Jörgen is also an Honorary Visiting Associate Professor with the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.

Intrigued by the dearth of simulation in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, Jörgen joined Caro Research (now part of Evidera) in 2003 as a specialist in discrete event simulation (DES) and has been instrumental in implementing DES as a modeling tool in HTA. His focus has been on translating methods from operations research to pharmacoeconomics and on developing guidelines for this type of modeling. Jörgen has created more than thirty DES models in the areas of devices and pharmaceuticals. Since discretely integrated condition-event modeling was devised by Dr. J. Jaime Caro in 2016 Jörgen has been deeply involved in the development of the technical platforms for the Discretely Integrated Condition Event (DICE) simulation. He also conducts advanced training courses in DES, the ARENA-software, and DICE. Jörgen received an MSc-degree in mechanical engineering at Lund University, Sweden.

Course fee

CategoryFees*
Students/LMICS$1412.64
NUHS staff/ Non-profit partnerS$2354.40
Public sector/ Corporate partnerS$3531.60
Private sectorS$5886.00

Remarks:

  1. LMIC refers to countries listed under the Low-Income Economies or Lower-Middle Income Economies according to the World Bank.
  2. NUHS staff refers to staff under the NUHS cluster (including NUH, NTFGH, AH, JCH, NUP, National University Cancer Institute Singapore, National University Heart Centre Singapore, National University Centre for Oral Health Singapore, Centre for Innovation in Healthcare).
  3. Non-profit partner refers to members under HTAsiaLink & iDSI members.
  4. Public sector refers to any government agency, hospital or state university.
  5. Corporate partner refers to members under APACMed and SAPI.
  6. Private sector refers to any private hospital, university or private company.

*Prices stated above are in Singapore Dollars (SGD) and are inclusive of 9% Singapore Goods and Services Tax. The University reserves the right to review and adjust the course fees and make changes to the programme structure and requirements as necessary and accordingly without prior notice.

Application

  • Application closes on 6 March 2025 OR when the application is full.
  • For more information on this course, please contact us at hiper@nus.edu.sg
 

Cancellation

  • Cancellation is permissible if conveyed to the course administrator in writing via email before 6 March 2025.
  • No refunds will be given from 6 March 2025 onwards but substitution with another name is permissible. Please inform the course administrator in writing via email, and provide the name and details of the substitute by 13 March 2025.
  • The School reserves the right to cancel the course due to low enrolment or unforeseen circumstances. If the course is cancelled, the School will refund the course fees paid in full.