Cost Ef Cost Ef fectiveness of Insulin fectiveness of Insulin Pump Pump Therapy Therapy

ontinuous subcutaneous insulin infusion using insulin pumps is becoming more sophisticated with improvement in technology . The use of these pumps is increasing amongst patients with type 1 diabetes and they have been shown to improve glycaemic control, hypogly- caemia rates and quality of life. There are, however, high costs associated with the use of pump therapy both in terms of purchasing equipment and increased health professional time for commencement of pump therapy. Cost effectiveness is becoming a high priority for health care in most coun- tries and guidelines have been developed for economic evaluation of med- ical therapies. The cost effectiveness is most commonly assessed looking at quality adjusted life years (QALY) gained by a treatment and the incre- mental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) or cost per QALY. This enables direct comparison to be made between different treatments in different dis-