Test Evaluation Group

What we do

Medical tests require rigorous evaluation before being implemented in clinical practice. The evaluation of tests and med-tech is notoriously complex however, in part due to the indirect nature of the impact of these technologies on patient outcomes.

The introduction of a new test or technology into a clinical pathway may provide clear benefits (e.g. targeted treatment, less invasive investigations, reduced costs or waiting lists), but may also involve underlying risks or costs (e.g. more expensive, side effects, over-diagnosis). Economic evaluation weighs up these effects in order to determine whether the benefits of a new technology are sufficiently large to warrant investment.

Health economists in our Test Evaluation Group (TEG) specialise in the evaluation of medical tests and related medical technologies. We have a wide range of expertise and experience, including (but not limited to):

• Early health economic evaluations (e.g. to assess a technology’s potential to be costeffective, and inform the direction and focus of future research activities)
• Late-stage health economic evaluations (e.g. to support technology implementation and adoption)
• Economic evaluation to inform Target Product Profile (TPP) development (i.e. using early economic modelling to inform technology performance benchmarks)

We work closely with clinical, academic and industry partners. In particular we work with the NIHR Leeds HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) for Accelerated Surgical Care, which aims to support medical device, diagnostic and digital health technology companies to develop health technology innovations for surgical conditions, providing patients with quicker or more effective diagnosis, treatment, and/or recovery along surgical pathways.

We have close links with the NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) which aims to drive innovation in preventing, diagnosing and treating conditions across various clinical themes (including antimicrobial resistance, cardiometabolic disease, haematology, musculoskeletal Disease, Pathology, and Surgical Technologies).

We are happy to provide initial advice on research design, as well as collaborating on medium and large-scale research proposals. We are also keen to support students in this field and can provide supervision on related pre-doctoral and doctoral projects.

Who we are

People

Group Lead
Dr Alison Smith

View our team members

Related groups

The Test Evaluation Group sits under the Academic Unit of Health Economics alongside the following research groups:

• Applied Health Econometrics Group
• Decision Modelling Group
• Evidence Synthesis Group
• Academic Unit of Health Economics