Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis for Health Care Decision Making (MCDA)
A structured way to help make decisions about health technologies by looking at many factors, not just cost and effectiveness, such as safety, patient views, and how it fits into the health system.
At a glance
Use when
Deciding between health technologies with similar clinical outcomes but differing non-clinical impacts; when stakeholder values are important; in complex or value-laden decisions
Avoid when
When only cost and effectiveness matter; when data on multiple criteria are unavailable or unreliable; when decision context is simple and well-defined
Inputs
Health technology alternatives, relevant criteria, performance data, stakeholder preferences
Outputs
Comprehensive decision support output showing ranked or scored alternatives based on multiple criteria
How it works
A formal framework developed by the ISPOR MCDA Emerging Good Practices Task Force that enables systematic evaluation of health technologies using multiple criteria. It supports structuring decision problems, weighting criteria, scoring alternatives, and aggregating results to inform health care decisions.
- HTA domains
- Clinical Effectiveness, Costs & Economic Evaluation, Patient and Social Aspects
- Assumptions
- Criteria are relevant and comprehensive; stakeholder input improves legitimacy; trade-offs can be quantified or structured
- Strengths
- Improves transparency, incorporates diverse stakeholder perspectives, allows systematic comparison beyond cost-effectiveness, supports complex decisions
- Limitations
- Can be resource-intensive; results depend on quality of input data and weighting choices; risk of subjectivity in criteria selection and scoring
- Also known as
- MCDA, ISPOR MCDA Framework
Questions this answers
- › How well does a health technology perform across multiple criteria?
- › How do different technologies compare when considering both clinical and non-clinical factors?
- › What are the trade-offs between benefits, risks, and costs?
- › How can stakeholder values be integrated into decision making?
- › How can transparency and consistency be improved in HTA?
- › How should criteria be weighted and scored in a structured way?
References & sources
Related methods
Similar by meaning
Beta record. Based on the original catalogue summary; primary-source enrichment pending.