Academic publisher SAGE, US, and the Society for Medical Decision Making have announced the release of seven new reports that will reportedly have a significant impact on modelling techniques in healthcare research and medical decision making. The reports have been published in a special issue of Medical Decision Making (MDM), a SAGE journal. They were written by the Modelling Good Research Practices Task Force, a special group of leading experts in decision analysis, economics, simulation and health policy.
The reports seek to offer guidance for creating modelling studies for health outcomes research that can inform healthcare decisions. In order to ensure that these new guidelines are consistent with current modelling techniques, the Modelling Good Research Practices Task Force was created, which is comprised of members from the Society for Medical Decision Making and the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.
The series of seven papers are said to present the updated recommendations for best practices in conceptualising models; implementing state–transition approaches, discrete event simulations, or dynamic transmission models; dealing with uncertainty; and validating and reporting models transparently. The reports from the task force were peer-reviewed. Each of the seven new studies, as well as the three related editorials, have been made free and open to the public for a limited time.
