조기 경제성평가에 따른 불확실성 존재 하에서 의사결정을 위한 VOI 이해 및 활용

Value of Information for Decision Making under Uncertainty

The value of information (VOI) is the value of additional information, as a quantitative estimate which presents the result as a monetary value. The VOI helps to make decisions under uncertainty. The importance of VOI is growing due to the increase of early market approval of new technologies. The theoretical framework of VOI is based on the Bayesian decision theory. VOI analysis estimates the expected costs associated with making a wrong decision due to uncertainty. This implies that a new information is more valuable when a VOI is large. There are parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate VOIs and non-parametric methods are commonly used. To estimate VOI, a non-parametric method calculates the difference of potential values between decision with perfect information and decision under uncertainty. The decision to conduct a new research is made when the population VOI estimate is larger than the expected cost of conducting the additional research. There are three key measurements in VOI. The expected value of perfect information (EVPI) is perfect information for the whole parameters, the expected value of perfect parameter information (EVPPI) is perfect information for a parameter or a set of parameters, and the expected value of sample information (EVSI) provides information of new study design. VOI analysis may require a lot of computational time but efficient software programs have been introduced.